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I bought a book called Paradise by a poet of the Italian Renaissance. His name is Dante Alighieri. This book isn't about the Paradise you guys are thinking of, in the anime series, "Wolf's Rain". This is talking about Heaven. This author also wrote a book called The Divine Comedy, or Inferno. Both of these books are really old, but they have been translated many times.


I'll post some art later.

There's no BOOK called The Divine Comedy; that's just the name of the collection, which consists of The Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso [in that order]...

And yes, I had a chance to study Dante last year in AP European History. He was an author during the Protestant Reformation, if memory serves me correctly. Apparently, some see these stories as allegories as well...

I, myself, have only read the Inferno, however. And I must concur that Dante does have quite a skill in portraying such vivid scenes. This is where he endures the 9 rings of Hell, in each ring, a certain sin gets punished, until right in the center was the Devil itself, accompanied by the archangel, Vergil. I love how these stories are constructed in an epic poem, and what's better -- they even rhyme!! XD The Inferno was rather grotesque, however [In one scene, sinners were punished by being sliced to pieces, and they must put themselves back together, only to be sliced up again] But despite the gore, I thought it was really good. ^^

His representation of the Devil:

Dante was a very talented poet, though the rhym kind of catches me away from the story. The Divine Comedy(all three books) are books that you almost need to read somewhere quiet in order to understand them, unless you're a big poetry fanatic, I guess. He can be a bit graphic in his poems, and so can Edgar Allan Peo. The old art work portrayed in the pages of Inferno are pretty gruesome. I started Paradise or Paradiso just yesterday and I am on the sixth Canto. I have read a bit of Inferno but I didn't get very far. I was thinking of buying that too, but I would have wasted 60 dollars on only two (hardcover) books!

Hey, you really read the Divine Comedy?I'm italian and I've studied it at school...this is a very good book, in italian is "La Divina Commedia"...

Cool. I haven't read the whole thing yet. I've only read a bit of Inferno and am on the sixth Canto of Paradise.