Quote by Dante Alighieri: “Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark.”

The opening of the Divine Comedy describes waking up in the middle of your life to find yourself completely lost — not physically, but morally and spiritually. It is one of literature's most powerful images for midlife crisis: not dramatic collapse, but a quiet, disorienting finding-yourself-in-darkness.

The Divine Comedy was composed during Dante's years of exile from Florence, begun around 1308 and completed shortly before his death in 1321. The opening image of being lost in a dark wood was written by a man who had lost his city, his political life, and his home — the metaphor was grounded in personal reality.

Italian poet born in Florence in 1265, author of the Divine Comedy, a three-part epic poem considered the greatest work of Italian literature and a cornerstone of Western literary tradition. Exiled from Florence in 1302 due to political conflict, he wrote much of his major work in exile. He died in Ravenna in 1321.