Kierkegaard and Virgil, Guides from a Spiritual Trip

Abstract

In this essay are showed coincidences between Dante Alighieri’s masterpiece, La Divina Commedia, and the writings of pseudonym Anti-Climacus, The Sickness unto Death and Practice in Christianity where Søren Kierkegaard explains his theory about despair and redemption. Even though they are works with so different intentions are showed the big coincidences in the description of the start point of the man: the spiritual geography from despair and the need of making a spiritual journey in order to reach, along the neighbor, the authentic existence. Coincidences possible because, despite the differences between age and culture, they could understand human nature.