What are the best parts of Dante's Inferno?

According to tradition —with which I tend to agree in this matter—, there are at least three cantos of the Inferno which are timeless masterpieces in their own right, each of them for different reasons. Inferno XXVI, also known as 'the canto of Ul... read more

Here Dante encounters a famous enemy of his, and gets entangled in a surprisingly vivid political scuffle. Erich Auerbach wrote a classic essay about this canto in his Mimesis. And I reserved the most famous for last: Inferno V. It is the canto of the lustful, also known as ‘the canto of Francesca’. read more