DIVINA
THE DIVINE COMEDY
PLAYERS
DANTE
Our hero Dante is really two characters--he is the poet and the pilgrim. Thus allowing him to reach universal and personal levels. He is our everyman, our hero.
On the evening that we meet Dante, he is thirty-five and questioning. He belives he has lost his "true path" in life (the path to spiritual fulfillment) due to sin and temptaion. The only thing we know for certain is his love for a woman name Beatrice, who he will follow to Hell and back.
VIRGIL
BEATRICE
Dante's true love. She acts as his guide, in the same way as Virgil, except she is the personification of divine wisdom, revelation and grace. She is the only one who can save Dante (mankind).
When we meet Beatrice, she has already been granted a place in Heaven. Although the details of her life remain uncertain, we know that Dante fell passionately in love with her as a young man and never fell out of it. She has a limited role in Inferno but becomes more prominent in Purgatorio and Paradiso. Although it is Beatrice who sends Virgil to guide Dante on his journey, the bottom line is, Dante’s entire journey throughout the afterlife aims to find Beatrice, whom he has lost on Earth because of her early death. Critics generally view Beatrice as an allegorical representation of spiritual love.
Dante's guide, throughout the depths of hell. Virgil is the personification of reason and human wisdom.
Historically, Virgil lived in the first century B.C., and is known as the greatest Latin Poet. He is condemed to hell, becuase he lived prior to God's appearance on earth (with prevented any possibilty of redemption). Virgil is an important character becuase he shows the immense power of human wisdom, which pales in comparison to the power of faith in God.