"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?

What a triumph! For the price of your name and e-mail address you can join the journey through the dark wood. Check out one of the many paintings on the site. This one by Amos Nattini for the tenth Canto of the Inferno.

And if you aren't satisfied you can read the dual column text here: http://etcweb.princeton.edu/dante/pdp/

Or maybe the original in Italian?

http://etcweb.princeton.edu/dante/pdp/audioitl.html

Collection of Dante http://www.ipl.org/div/litcrit/bin/litcrit.out.pl?au=ali-104

I was fascinated by Teddy Roosevelt's analysis of Dante as a poet of the "Bowery". http://www.bartleby.com/56/7.html