Dr. David Allen White expounds on Dante's masterpiece, explaining how The Divine Comedy transforms the faulty notion of courtly love into the mystical union between the soul and God. In Part I, Dr. White discusses Dante's life and formation in the context of the political situation of the day, the nature of comedy as such, the allegorical aspects of the poem, and the structure of the poem. Taken from: Christianity in the High Middle Ages - 1995 VonHildebrand Institute