Cross That Dante Bears

Mary Watt proposes that the Divine Comedy employs a series of strategically placed textual cues to create a meta-textual structure beyond Dante's literal narrative. Dimly perceptible at first, the structure becomes ever more knowable as the protagonist reaches his ultimate goal. As the pilgrim wends his way through the three realms of the afterlife, references to medieval maps and to medieval cruciform churches, together with images of crusading and pilgrimage, ultimately reveal the shape of thi