Dante explores the imaginative communication between a soul's sin on Earth and the punishment he or she receives in Hell- if there is such a thing. Although Christianity, religious philosophy etc are the raw themes, Dante still manages to manipulate his tale beyond all real reasoning to become that of imagination. Dante's Inferno therefore can be seen as a kind of imaginative categorization of human evil, the various types of which Dante creates and explores through his journey in Hell. Although he follows a strict religious doctrine and implies religious arguments of good and evil he rarely discusses them in Inferno. Rather Dante creates imagery and creatures that only exist in the mind's eye.
             Because the subject of the poem is afterlife (yet another journey) there's a subject of immortality, what human mind believes, an 'everlasting life through legend and literary legacy'. Many who suffer in hell ask Dante to recall them in the world, just so that they exist at least in the memory of the people.
             2. How are ideas about imaginative journeys conveyed?
             'Midway on our life's journey, I found myself I n dark woods, the right road lost.' Canto I.
             The poem's first Canto seems to convey a journey quiet literally. The plane on which the story will unfold is established. However the use of the words 'journey' and 'right road' can also have a spiritual meaning of Dante's future adventure, this is leaving the relm of literal. The image of 'dark woods' also brings out images as well as associations of mainly dark unpredictable, wild. 'Our' links us, the readers, invites us to join Dante in the search of the 'right road'.
             In essence to read this poem without realising the context and the symbolic meaning is not to understand it in full. Dante uses mythological, religious as well as symbolic...