Part of: The Divine Comedy, in 3 vols. (Langdon trans.) The Divine Comedy, Vol. 1 (Inferno) (English trans.)

Milton’s poetic epic retells Adam and Eve’s fall from Eden. His reworking of biblical themes took inspiration not only from the classical epics, but also from Dante’s Divine Comedy.

This Romantic era response to a biblical text conveys the suffering and struggle that is such a feature of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Virgil’s Aeneid, one of the world’s great epic poems, tells the founding myth of Rome and includes a voyage to the underworld. Virgil himself serves as a character in Dante’s Divine Comedy, leading him through the underworld and serving as a poetic inspiration and model.

The terror of divine judgement is compellingly portrayed in this book of the Bible.

A series on reading Dante’s Inferno at the Reading Room blog.

The influence of the Bible on Dante’s epic nearly goes without saying. It is interesting to note, however, how little discussion of heaven and hell are contained in the Bible, and how much Dante creates on his own.

Homer’s Odyssey, one of the world’s great epic poems, is perhaps less closely related to Dante’s divine comedy, though Odysseus’s 7 year long journey to return home to his wife, Penelope, may be a useful model for thinking about Dante’s desire to reunite with Beatrice.