SOURCE: “The Metaphor of the Journey” in Dante's Drama of the Mind: A Modern Reading of the “Purgatorio,” Princeton University Press, 1953, pp. 3-13.

In the following essay, Fergusson makes use of Dante's explanations to his benefactor, Can Grande della Scala, in discussing the importance of differentiating between Dante the author and Dante the Pilgrim.

For the first line of the first canto of the Divine Comedy Dante wrote:

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita 

(In the middle of the journey of our life) 

There everything starts: in the middle of human life considered as a journey. There Dante was so lost and terrified that the journey to the realms beyond the grave became necessary for his salvation. But there too he found the strength and vision he required.

Dante knew that “the journey of our life” was a metaphor. He knew that the journey beyond the grave...