Finally, Virgil's presence throughout the Divine Comedy is there for a philosophical reason, as well; he is meant to represent the clarity of reason in a spiritually chaotic universe.
Homer, author of the great epic the Odyssey, also appears in Dante's Divine Comedy, in the Limbo section of the Inferno. Homer was also the author of the Iliad, which tells the story of the Trojan War. Homer's presence in Dante's work effectively connects the Florentine poet with the politics and poetics of ancient Greece. This is further symbolized by the fact that Homer, in the Inferno, leads as "Lord" three Latin poets - Horace, Ovid, and Lucan. This further...
her underlines the effect that the ancient Greeks had on the Romans - and the double influence that both had on Dante as a poet and politician.
The Latin poet Lucan, although not as well-known as Horace and Ovid today, was an important influence on Dante for his important epic poem on the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey, Pharsalia.
With its proliferation of references and spiritual invocations of Roman and Greek poets of the past, Dante's the Divine Comedy signals an important act of homage to some of the great writers that preceded him - writers whose voices are allowed to resonate through Dante Alighieri's own.
