The Divine Comedy (Italian: La Divina Commedia) is an epic poem written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321. It is widely considered the preeminent work of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature. The poems imaginative and allegorical vision of the Christian afterlife is a culmination of the medieval world-view as it had developed in the Western Church. It helped establish the Tuscan dialect in which it is written as the Italian st...

Led by his guide Beatrice, Dante leaves the Earth behind and soars through the heavenly spheres of Paradise. In this third and final part of the Divine Comedy, he encounters the just rulers and holy saints of the Church. The horrors of the Inferno and the trials of Purgatory are left far behind. Ultimately, in Paradise, Dante is granted a vision of Gods heavenly court the angels, the Blessed Virgin and God Himself.

Dantes Hell is one of the most remarkable visions in Western literature. An allegory for his and future ages, it is, at the same time, an account of terrifying realism. Passing under a lintel emblazoned with these frightening words, the poet is led down into the depths by Virgil and shown those doomed to suffer eternal torment for vices exhibited and sins committed on earth. The Inferno is the first part of the long journey which continues through redemption to revelation through Purgatory a...

This file includes the original (Inferno, Purgatorio, and Inferno) in Italian, plus an English translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. According to Wikipedia: "Durante degli Alighieri ( c.1265 - 1321), commonly known as Dante Alighieri, was a Florentine poet of the Middle Ages. His central work, the Divina Commedia (originally called "Commedia" and later called "Divina" (divine) by Boccaccio hence "Divina Commedia"), is often considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian...

Purgatory is the second part of Dantes The Divine Comedy. We find the Poet, with his guide Virgil, ascending the terraces of the Mount of Purgatory inhabited by those doing penance to expiate their sins on earth. There are the proud forced to circle their terrace for aeons bent double in humility; the slothful running around crying out examples of zeal and sloth; while the lustful are purged by fire.

'I truly thought I'd never make it back.'Ten of the most memorable and most terrifying cantos from Dante's Inferno.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California an...

A superb translation of Dante’s classic tale that chronicles the poet’s journey through the nine circles of Hell, a dual-language edition vividly rendered and with an introduction and commentary by National Book Award–winning translator Allen Mandelbaum“Exactly what we have waited for these years, a Dante with clarity, eloquence, terror, and profoundly moving depths.”—Robert Fagles, Princeton UniversityIn the Inferno, renowned tran...

De vulgari eloquentia, written by Dante in the early years of the fourteenth century, is the only known work of medieval literary theory to have been produced by a practising poet, and the first to assert the intrinsic superiority of living, vernacular languages over Latin. Its opening consideration of language as a sign-system includes foreshadowings of twentieth-century semiotics, and later sections contain the first serious effort at literary criticism based on close analytical reading ...

The Inferno, the first section of the 14th century poem The Divine Comedy, tells of the passage of Dante through Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil.Hell is described as nine circles of suffering beneath the Earth.Allegorically, the epic grandeur of Dante’s masterpieceThe Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul towards God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and ultimate rejection of sin.“Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them...

Many have made the journey. None have ever returned...Wandering through a dark forest, Dante finds himself at the gates to the underworld. Despite his terror, he dares to enter the Circles of Hell, where the damned lie in torment.As he descends deeper, he encounters wild-eyed sinners, sees the three-headed, howling hound Cerberus, and meets a long-dead prophet who foretells Dante's destiny. He passes through realms of fire and ice, and at last reaches the frozen heart of He...

Having plunged to the uttermost depths of Hell and climbed the Mount of Purgatory in parts one and two of the Divine Comedy, Dante ascends to Heaven in this third and final part, continuing his soul’s search for God, guided by his beloved Beatrice. As he progresses through the spheres of Paradise he grows in understanding, until he finally experiences divine love in the radiant presence of the deity. Examining eternal questions of faith, desire and enlightenment, Dante exercised a...