"For good and ill, we have become accustomed to thinking in images almost more than in words."

A guess as to why Dante appeals to the modern imagination. Here's another guess:

"But after the Battle of the Somme, the Holocaust, and Hiroshima, it is only too easy to see Dante's world as reflection of our own. Once again, there is an ironic counterpoint between the 13th century and the 21st. Dante could imagine vivid bodily tortures because he believed completely in the soul; our world inflicts those tortures because it doesn't believe in the soul at all."

Intriguing thought, we love Dante because we have no soul. Like the sinners waiting to cross the River with Charon: we wish our horrible fate because we know we deserve it. Yes, No, meh?