"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate." "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy isn’t just a poem—it’s an eternal nightmare carved into literature. a journey through Hell’s horrors, Purgatory’s trials, and Heaven’s eternal glow. Sinners burn, the repentant climb, and the blessed shine—all under the weight of divine justice. Virgil guides, Beatrice saves, and Dante walks the path of every soul—lost, seeking, and finally found.This first part of The ...

The Divine Comedy is so divine (I pass the redundancy) that we can bring some of Dante's narration to our day. Without necessarily dividing our moments into stages, we do not have to die to see the scenes we have passed. Nowadays, humanity, so sordid and unmasked, acts, treating one another personally, as if it had a particular Heaven of false power, knowing it lives in a real Hell. Worse still is not to reach out to the next, pushing them to innumerable Purgatory at once, offering no other choi...

”THROUGH ME THE WAY INTO THE SUFFERING CITY,THROUGH ME THE WAY TO THE ETERNAL PAIN,THROUGH ME THE WAY THAT RUNS AMONG THE LOST.JUSTICE URGED ON MY HIGH ARTIFICER;MY MAKER WAS DIVINE AUTHORITY,THE HIGHEST WISDOM, AND THE PRIMAL LOVE.BEFORE ME NOTHING BUT ETERNAL THINGSWERE MADE, AND I ENDURE ETERNALLY.ABANDON EVERY HOPE, WHO ENTER HERE.” Botticelli’s vision of Satan. There are 92 illustrations by Botticelli, inspired by The Divine Comedy, of which this edition contains a selection.I read I...

Every moment of Dante's gruelling masterpiece is a Revelation of a Timeless Moment:Timeless Moments of our own or another's Hellish Anger or Hellish Lust; Timeless moments of our own or other's stinging Purgatorial guilt over Sloth or Empty Vanity;: or Timeless Moments of Heavenly Peace and Freedom at last, at the apparent end of our journey.Once we know the Way Up and the Way Down, our Work is Cut Out for Us!***Reading the Divine Comedy at seventeen was, for me, to see the world sub specie aete...

I We attempt to rewrite the Divine ComedyCanto IIn the middle of the journey of my lifeI came across a man named TrumpWho seemed bent on causing much strifeO! how he was an unpleasant, fleshy lump!Like some hobgoblin of the child's imaginationOr a thing that in the night goes bump.But in spite of lengthy cogitationI find I have produced fewer words Than members of the crowd at an inaugurationI've doubtless disappointed the Dante nerdsAnd before long may well concede defeatMy plan, I admit, was s...

Aclaro algo: no soy religioso, ni intelectual ni estudioso de los dioses o lo que pasa antes o después de la vida y la muerte. Leí el libro y lo encontré muy bueno.Leí la obra en un solo libro, pero no sabía que estaba dividido en 3 partes. Al parecer, Infierno es la obra más conocida, y no es para menos, pero vale la pena leer todo.Mi cabeza voló y voló con tanta información e imaginación en mi cabeza, el camino en el purgatorio, una vez estando en este, etc. Un viaje maravilloso y un libro muy...

I once thought I'd write an essay on how long it takes a serious author (of fiction or nonfiction) before he or she inevitably quotes Dante. If I were to write a novel myself (this is a hypothetical grammatical construction!), I'd probably manage about a page before I'd exclaim that I am lost, and middle-aged, and in the middle of a dark forest. I'd try to kill off annoying acquaintances and punish them severely for their lack of admiration for me and my creativity (not to mention my sarcasm and...

THE DARING, somewhat COMIC, and also DIVINE, INVENTIOIt is very difficult not to be lured by the highly intelligent craft of Durante degli Aliguieri (DA). And may be it is not a coincidence that he was the exact contemporary of Giotto, his fellow Florentine. For if Giotto planted the seed for a pictorial representation of the world in which man, at the center, and through a window, delivers to us a naturalistic depiction of divine stories, Dante also used his writing to posit himself as the Auth...

"Quien aquí entre, abandone toda esperanza. "Símbolo inequívoco de su época, esta obra de arte inmortalizada en letras, es un legado universal que Dante nos dejó para siempre y que es un clásico de proporciones épicas que disfruté de principio a final. Algunas consideraciones:Mucha gente lee La Divina Comedia interesada solamente por el Infierno, y no es para menos.Si alguien tiene la inmensa suerte de leer la edición ilustrada por Gustave Doré, llega al Paraíso como si acompañara a Dante buscan...

"You can recognize a small truth because its opposite is a falsehood. The opposite of a great truth is another truth." - Niels BohrI was thinking about Dante the other day and wondering how one could approach him from the angle of a GoodReads review. One of the obvious problems is that he lived a long time ago, and many of the cultural referents have changed. You're constantly having to think "Well, nowadays what he's saying would correspond to THAT". It isn't so bad in Hell, when there is plent...