The Divine Comedy: The Inferno, The Purgatorio, The Paradiso

Dante Alighieri (c.1265 – 1321), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher, most famous for his Divine Comedy, which is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language. Dante's literary output is largely responsible for establishing the use of the vernacular in literature at a time when most poetry was written in Latin, making it more accessible to the larger public and helping establishing the modern-day standardized Italian language. His depictions of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven in the Divine Comedy were also enduringly influential on the Western literary and artistic imagination, heavily influencing future English-language writers like Geoffrey Chaucer and John Milton, and Italians like Petrarch and Boccaccio.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 – 1882) was an American poet whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. His work remains among some of the most beloved and enduringly influential works of poetry produced by 19th century America.