The narrative takes as its literal subject the state of the soul after death and presents an image of divine justice meted out as due punishment or reward, and describes Dante's travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise or Heaven. Allegorically the poem represents the soul's journey towards God, beginning with the recognition and rejection of sin ("Inferno"), followed by the penitent Christian life ("Purgatorio"), which is then followed by the soul's ascent to God ("Paradiso"). Dante draws on medieval Roman Catholic theology and philosophy, especially Thomistic philosophy derived from the "Summa Theologica" of Thomas Aquinas. Consequently, the "Divine Comedy" has been called "the "Summa" in verse". In Dante's work, the pilgrim Dante is accompanied by three guides: Virgil (who represents human reason), Beatrice (who represents divine revelation, theology, faith, and grace), and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (who represents contemplative mysticism and devotion to Mary the Mother). Erich Auerbach said Dante was the first writer to depict human beings as the products of a specific time, place and circumstance as opposed to mythic archetypes or a collection of vices and virtues; this along with the fully imagined world of the "Divine Comedy", different from our own but fully visualized, suggests that the "Divine Comedy" could be said to have inaugurated modern fiction.