The last piece of literature I finished reading is Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. Although it's a poem, the way it's written and the sheer length of it make it a very good read. I only have
Inferno, which is the first section of the
Commedia, with the others being
Purgatorio and
Paradiso. For those of you familiar with neither the story nor the Iced Earth epic, I'll briefly detail the plot below;
The story begins
in media res, with the Italian poet Dante wandering in the Dark Wood of Error. He sees a mountain, the summit bathed in golden light, and attempts to climb it, but finds the way blocked by a Leopard, a Lion and a She-Wolf. Then, the shade of Vergil (or Virgil), the Roman poet and author of the
Aeneid, appears to Dante and tells him that if he seeks the light, he must follow him on a journey through Hell. All this serves as an introductory metaphor; the Dark Wood is sin, the mountain is representative of Mount Purgatory (featured in the Purgatorio), and the light is redemption. The Leopard represents the Sins of Incontinence, sins of weakness, the Lion, sins of anger, and the She-Wolf, Sins of Redemption. The order of these represents the orders of the circles Dante will travel through in Hell, which consists of Nine main circles, with some sub-divisions. Along the way, Dante meets various Sinners from his native town of Florence, and they discuss various topics, most notably the corruption of Florence (for at the time of writing, c. 1310, or sometime after the turn of the century), Dante was falsely exiled by a political faction (there was a LOT of politics in Middle Ages Florence). Dante also borrows heavily from Virgil's Book 6 of the Aeneid, where Aeneas (the Trojan Prince and mythical founder of Rome*) must travel through the Classical Underworld. As such, such creatures as the Centaurs, Minotaur, Harpies and Furies appear, as well as such figures as Odysseus, the 'Seven against Thebes', Dido etc. etc.
The style of writing is that of first-person narrative, but it is the structure of the poem that fascinates me. Each stanza is composed of a
tetrain, that is to say that it is made up of three lines. The rhyme scheme is unusual, as well, as it begins aba for the first tetrain, then continues bcb, cdc, ded....xyx z. This gives the effect similar to the pounding of waves, and the frightening order of Dante's vision of Hell is made even more gripping. Also, the single 'z' line at the end of each 'Canto' (Chapter) serves to bring the Canto to an abrupt halt, and as most Cantos end on a cliffhanger or Dante progressing to another Circle (he faints a lot, by the way
), this effect is pronounced. The story culminates in a pitifying vision of Satan, bound in the innermost circle of Hell, who, in contrast with the traditional concept of a Lord of Hell, is trapped waist deep in Ice, unable to free himself. The poet uses his fur to climb down through the centre of the earth and to the other side of the world, where they encounter the spring of Lethe (forgetfullness) and embark to Mount Purgatory.
Really, I would recommend this epic to anyone...it is really one of the finest works of literature of the Middle Ages, and easily matches Homer or Virgil in it's scope, epicness, and subtle use of language. If you can, I would suggest you get a version that uses the original Italian with an adjacent translation, which really helps you appreciate the rhyme and structure of the poem.
*Okay, so Aeneas didn't found Rome, but his great-grandchildren, Romulus and Remus, supposedly did. Aeneas founded the town of Alba Longa, in the Latin hills.
Not quite! But I won't get into it now. 
