The works negotiate the nature of the allegory of the soul The tragic state of man, in which the world of reality is projected on to the other world through the imagination.
Human morality enters into the heavenly order of things, in which the allegorical theatre of the passions and of the events of an earthly reality is played out.
The other world makes its appearance with the image of this world. In the background, however, is the mystery of our soul, in its three states: Human, Divested, and Reborn, which represent Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, the three worlds of Dante.
Hell is shown as everyone imagines it: a place of FIRE.
Purgatory refers our imagination to water, by means of which, apart from its cleansing property, was also the element which led our ancient ancestors to the other dimension.
Paradise, according to Dante, was the ‘Empyrean’, which alone, he writes, remains immobile, higher than all the heavens, and is the dwelling-place of God. Odysseus, Dante, Orpheus, Aeneas, Christ – five figures who made this perilous and terrible journey into Hades, each for a different reason and purpose.
His adventures changed the clever Odysseus from an arrogant trickster into a wise man. When he returned to Ithaca, his entire way of looking at the world had altered. Hades, metaphorically, is finality, completion for man, because man, through difficult situations – that is, Purification – is hardened, matures, and acts wisely.
But Purification cannot come in half measures, nor with equivocations. Nor with the efforts of others. Purification is individual, just as the resurrection of the spirit is. Smara Ayacatsica