In sweet freshness, healed of winter's scars; perfect, pure, and ready for the Stars.

As Dante travels through the afterlife with his guides, There are a few important symbols. Virgil represents divine revelation. He was send by God to lead Dante through the purifying parts of his journey. The next is Beatrice, who stands for God. When Dante is pure, he gets to go be with Beatrice, or God, in Paradise.

There are two main ways that The Divine Comedy can be interpreted: literally or metaphorically. The literal interpretation is fairly simple. This is what Dante thought the afterlife would look like. Maybe he had a dream of circles in Hell. He was catholic, which explains his views on Purgatory and being punished and purified from sins. 

Next comes the metaphorical interpretation. In this, each section in the afterlife represents a stage of salvation. Hell, or Inferno, represents a person before coming to Christ. This person is living in sin and has no goal to do better. Then, the person is justified and no longer is a sinner without a chance.

After the justification in Inferno, Dante travels through Purgatorio. This would represent sanctification salvation. The believer is no longer living in sin, but still struggles with it. Purgatory represents the believer working toward God and Heaven with divine revelation from God.

Finally, Paradiso represents glorification salvation. This is when we get to be in Heaven and spend eternity with God. In Dante's epic, there are circles in Heaven too. These are similar to the way that each person in Heaven gains rewards for what they did on earth.