Dante and the Power of Beauty

A journey through the Divine Comedy

One of the many interwoven themes of the Divine Comedy — Dante’s journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise that forms the foundation of Western poetry — is the transformative power of beauty. Dante famously makes the claim:

“Beauty awakens the soul to act.”

The Commedia is an exploration of how beauty (and love) gradually transforms Dante, enabling him to become the highest version of himself. Indeed, when we too encounter beauty in life, we are not just passive observers — beauty compels a response from us, and we are changed for having seen it.

But how does beauty work? How are we to respond?

Let’s follow Dante’s upward journey through the Divine Comedy, starting with the pit of Hell itself…

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Inferno: Distortion of Beauty

Before Dante can ascend to Heaven, he must first travel to the very deepest rungs of Hell. The poet Virgil, Dante’s guide, leads the pilgrim to the Inferno’s deepest chamber, wherein we encounter Satan himself.

Surprisingly, the pit of Hell is not a blazing inferno but an icy cavern, since it is the farthest point from the warmth of God’s presence. Lucifer is trapped here in a frozen lake of his own tears.

At the pit of Hell, Dante weaves in his first lesson on beauty. He reminds us that prior to his rebellion, Lucifer was the most beautiful and powerful of all the angels:

If he [Lucifer] was once as handsome as he now
is ugly and, despite that, raised his brows
against his Maker, one can understand
how every sorrow has its source in him!

—Inferno, Canto XXXIV, 34–37

Here in Hell, however, Lucifer is a grotesque parody of beauty. Rather than Hell’s ruler, he is trapped here as its pitiful prisoner, weeping from the six eyes of his three faces — a hideous inversion of the Trinity.

More importantly, note that Hell is dark as well as cold, for it is not illuminated by the light of truth. Lucifer is blinded by the darkness, and does not even notice Dante and Virgil as they pass through.

The lesson here is straightforward: it is through obsession with the self that we are led to Hell and blinded to truth. Lucifer is entirely fixated on himself, blinded by his pride and narcissism, doomed to forever look down and inward instead of up toward the light.

As the Divine Comedy progresses, we’ll see that encounters with beauty provide a restoration of one’s vision, for those who are willing to look up...

Purgatory: Beauty Restored

Dante and Virgil escape Hell by climbing down Lucifer’s legs, passing through the Earth, and emerging on the other side at the foot of Mount Purgatory. Before he can enter Heaven, Dante must climb this mountain and be purged of sin in the process.

When Dante and Virgil have climbed up to the fourth terrace (after completing the terraces of Pride, Envy, and Wrath), we encounter another lesson on beauty. The scene turns to night, meaning that the travellers must wait, because in Purgatory you cannot climb after dark — sunlight must illuminate you in order for you to ascend.

Here, Virgil pauses to explain the origin of love to Dante. It begins, he says, when we experience something beautiful, and this becomes imprinted on the soul…

The soul, which is created quick to love,
responds to everything that pleases, just
as soon as beauty wakens it to act.

Your apprehension draws an image from
a real object and expands upon
that object until soul has turned toward it;

and if, so turned, the soul tends steadfastly,
then that propensity is love—it’s nature
that joins the soul in you, anew, through beauty.

—Purgatorio, Canto XVIII, 19–27

This prompts Dante to wonder: if our actions are guided by external beauty, what is the role of free will? How can one be blamed if the wrong things awaken him?

Virgil responds by confirming that the love kindled in you indeed comes from an object perceived as beautiful, but you also have an "innate virtue" to judge whether a given love should be pursued. Your response is within your control.

Indeed, as Dante continues to climb, his capacity to receive beauty deepens. As each of the seven deadly sins is purged from him, another obstacle to seeing clearly is removed. The light gets brighter as Dante climbs, and he feels a burden lifted at each level. By the time he reaches the summit, his senses are restored.

At the top of Purgatory, Dante reaches the heavenly garden, where he meets his next guide: Beatrice...

Paradise: Perfection of Beauty

Virgil, who represents human reason, is Dante’s guide through Hell and Purgatory, but he is unable to take Dante to Heaven. The transformation necessary for this lies beyond the reach of reason.

It is the beauty and love of Beatrice that fills Dante with the strength to complete his journey. Beatrice was Dante’s true love in real life, though she was wedded to another and died young during childbirth. Dante adored Beatrice throughout his life, and penned his Divine Comedy as an homage to her.

Beatrice guides Dante up through the nine heavenly spheres, and her beauty grows with each level they ascend. To Dante, her eyes shine increasingly brighter, but his ability to look into them (initially too bright to endure) increases also. Each sphere of Heaven strengthens his capacity to see, and as Beatrice grows more beautiful, her beauty “transhumanizes” him, lifting him beyond his mortal limits.

Beatrice’s role, as well as to feed Dante with the strength to keep climbing, is to embody the concept of beauty itself. When Dante finds himself lost in her eyes, Beatrice reminds him: “not only in my eyes is Paradise.”

Importantly, Beatrice does not return Dante’s gaze. Her eyes always point him to something else beyond. In other words, beauty itself is only a reflection of something greater, and it leads the viewer toward higher truth.

However, as Dante approaches the very pinnacle of Heaven, Beatrice can take him no further. What Dante sees next he cannot fully comprehend or describe — it is impossible even for the greatest poet of the West to put into words.

At the very heart of Paradiso, Dante reveals something astonishing about Heaven, and therein lies the greatest lesson of the Divine Comedy…