exhausting journey proves to be an invaluable lesson in restoration of the Church, which was in a corrupt state.

The physical ends of the journey are to strengthen the pilgrim’s body for the upcoming and rigorous ascent on

mount purgatory. The intellectual ends of the journey, however, are far more beneficial to the human soul. Man

must first understand the foundations of sin before he can hope to climb the mountain of salvation; it is only by

climbing down Lucifer’s grotesque body, i.e. grappling with sin itself, that the pilgrim is able to reach the

mountain of Purgatory. On his voyage through hell, Dante shows the effects of the sin on the sinner’s soul

through their punishments; each punishment is relative to the sin. Dante symbolizes the effects of sin on the soul

by using variations of a constant motion to punish the sinners in the circle of the lustful and the round of

sodomites. Dante presents the second circle of hell as the pitiful realm of the lustful, in which the souls are blasted

by a wind storm “eternal in its rage”(V.31). Th

Some topics in this essay:
Dante’s Inferno, XV Dante, soul proper, moved constantly opposite, feet moved constantly, constantly opposite directions”, constantly opposite, soul proper nature, dante’s inferno, feet moved, moved constantly, sin dante, circle hell, proper nature, effects sin, perversion nature, punishment sodomy brief, Canto XV,