🧳Welcome, Fellow Pilgrim
Begin your literary odyssey with Dante here.
This space is for readers seeking to fill their souls with more than information—those who intuit that the Great Books of Western civilization are not relics of a dead past but living signs of man’s enduring quest for truth, meaning, and spiritual renewal.
In this series of essays—part reading guide, part intellectual pilgrimage—we’ll follow the poet Dante Alighieri’s threefold “itinerary of conversion” and explore his literary inspirations. It’s a journey that descends into the chaos of human brokenness, climbs the mountain of redemption, and aspires toward the radiance of the Beatific Vision.
📚 What to Expect
Here in Literary Pilgrim, you’ll find:
Longform reflections on major themes—justice, pride, exile, mercy, resurrection
Commentary on classical and Christian texts: Homer, Virgil, Scripture, Augustine, and more
Connections to Dante’s Divine Comedy as a culmination of the Western symbolic imagination
Personal insights drawn from my own reading, experience, and spiritual tradition
This is reading as pilgrimage—the soul’s emanation and return.
🗺 Notional Milestones on the Journey:
“I Found Myself in a Dark Wood” — on getting lost and the beginning of conversion
“The Rage of Achilles” — pride, anger, and the tragic hero in Homer
“The Poetics of Descent” — Odysseus and the soul’s descent into Hades
“Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter” — Dante's descent into Hell
“The Seven-Story Mountain” — Dante in Purgatory and the climb toward healing
“In My End Is My Beginning” — the eternal return at the journey’s close
Each reflection helps orient us not only within the literary canon but within the moral and spiritual architecture of our own lives.
🧭 Ready to Begin?
Start with the most recent post, or return to the beginning of the series. If you’d like a self-guided reading plan, I’ve created the sample syllabus below. If you need a refresher on Homer’s epics and Greek mythology, I recommend Edith Hamilton’s Mythology.
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Welcome, pilgrim. The road is long, but we never walk it alone.
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