What Does It Mean?

Big Frog & I joined a Lenten small group, and are reading How Dante Can Save Your Life, by Rod Dreher.  It is not a translation of the original Italian, it is Rod relating his experience of reading it at a particular point in his own life. But I like how it has "How to think medievally" inserts in each chapter, which reminds me a bit of Rowan telling the Rose that although his Faire-vorite things may not be technically from the Renaissance the way hers are, they certainly are at a Renaissance Faire.  We're so far from Dante's time that we can't see thru his lens, we can only see his lens thru our own lens.  In light of that:

"Suspend your disbelief.  Let down your defenses.  Disarm your critical faculties.   The Commedia is so vast and complex that it is impossible to say definitively what it "means".  For the new reader, it's better to let the poem pass through your heart, and reveal what it means to you."

~Rod Dreher, ch4 Rules of the Road