Thread by @CoffeewClassics

On this day, Jan. 27, 1302, Dante Alighieri found himself cast into the wilderness.

Not allegorically. Literally.

But only after losing everything could he find his true life's purpose.

A thread on Dante's midlife crisis, what he learned from it and you can too. 1/

Dante wasn't always *just* a poet. His first vocation was politics. A dangerous game in Florence.

At age 35, he was at the top of the city's political pile.

At age 37? It was all gone.

His career? Over. His wealth? Stolen.

His life? He was an exile, on pain of death. 2/

But only in exile was Dante finally free to do what he always wanted, but couldn't while he still had something to lose:

Write poetry that was sharp & biting.

Poems that packed a punch & a message.

So he wrote an epic that made him a literary immortal: the Divine Comedy. 3/

The Comedy opens:

"In the middle of my life, I found myself in a dark wood where the straight path was lost."

Dante was in a dark place. This was autobiographical.

Dante's story is of a man who lost his way. And who has to go through hell to find his way back again. 4/

And that is the main lesson from Dante:

If you're in a dark place, don't stay there.

It may be a long journey out.

It may take 14,233 lines of epic poetry.

You may have to go through Hell.

But there is a way out, if you allow Reason and Love to guide you. 5/

Back to the story:

In the woods, Dante's accosted by a leopard, a lion, and a wolf.

These animals are symbols: Lust, Pride, Greed.

Dante can't get past them.

But a guide emerges, the ancient Roman poet Virgil, his literary hero, who represents his intellect & reason. 6/

Virgil tells him there's a way past these obstacles, but he has to descend to Hell.

Like Odysseus, Aeneas & other epic heroes did before him.

That is, Dante must directly confront the consequences of these sins that are keeping him from moving forward. 7/

What Dante sees in hell are souls who continuously choose self-sabotage.

People who choose to love the wrong things -- their own vanities, appetites & ambitions -- or choose to love the right things, but selfishly and destructively.

And thereby choose their own damnation. 8/

By leading Dante into the Inferno, circle by circle, and then ascending through Purgatorio, Virgil is providing a rubric for our own midlife self-examination.

It's an invitation to think critically about the ways we, through weakness or choice, harm ourselves every day. 9/

But Dante also learns you can't analyze your way out of everything.

Virgil has guided him through Hell and Purgatory up to the gates of Paradise, but he can't lead him past it.

Reason having reached its limit, a new guide must emerge: Love. 10/

Love arrives in the form of Beatrice, the unrequited love of Dante's youth.

And this is Dante's final lesson:

That the way back to the path is Love.

Learning to love others purely and selflessly.

And accepting that same love from others and from your Creator. 11/

Beatrice guides Dante's ascent through the spheres of Heaven until nearing the Godhead.

Dante, who began our poem lost in a dark wood, ends it blinded in the Light of his Creator.

He's no longer lost, as he's embraced by:

"The Love which moves the sun and all other stars." 12/

Dante himself wrote that his Comedy was not written as an allegory (though, it is one), but rather as a guide:

To help others, who are lost midlife like he was, find their way out of the Darkness and into the Light.

It's a great book. I encourage you to read it. /fin

Thanks for reading.

If you enjoyed this, please do me a favor and share the first post in this thread, linked below.