Going to hell is usually a tough break. But the poet Michael Palma doesn't seem to mind. To course through bitter waters presently, My wit’s small craft hoists sails for embarkation And takes its ...

The poet Dante Aligheri’s “Commedia” — it picked up “Divine” somewhere along the way — may seem an unlikely contender for relevance. Written 800 years ago, it can feel watermarked by the Middle Ages.

Tackling this culminating challenge in the company of his beloved Beatrice, who inspired the poem, Dante must trasumanar, a ...

The American modernist Marianne Moore once wrote that poems are imaginary gardens with real toads in them. This applies nicely to Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” Its garden is the poem’s otherworld—based on ...

William Blake, “The Circle of the Lustful: Paolo and Francesca,” 1827 engraving; plate: 27.7 x 35.5 cm (10 7/8 x 14 in.), sheet: 43.7 x 59.9 cm (17 3/16 x 23 9/16 in.), mat: 50.8 x 60.9 cm (20 x 24 in ...

What makes a poem more than 700 years old feel relevant today? The poet Mary Jo Bang is uniquely qualified to answer that question because she has spent the last 20 years translating Dante's "Divine ...

For a long time, Ric Burns thought he was going to be a professor of literature. Then he followed his brother, Ken, into filmmaking. Burns began his latest project, “Dante: Inferno to Paradise,” more ...

Dante Alighieri is one of the pillars of Western literature. And his texts have been translated into English dozens of times. With two new... There's a new translation of Dante's 'The Divine Comedy.' ...

Going to hell is usually a tough break. But the poet Michael Palma doesn't seem to mind. So that it will be worthy of salvation. The challenge to approaching a translation of Dante's original Italian ...

So that it will be worthy of salvation. The challenge to approaching a translation of Dante's original Italian this way is that it means you can't concentrate on three lines at a time – you have to ...