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To the consternation of his more academic admirers who believe LAtin to be the only proper language for dignified verse, Dante wrote his Comedy in colloquial Italian wanting it to be a poem for the common reader. Taking two threads of a story that everybody knew and loved - the story of a vision of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, and the story of the lover who has to brave the Underworld to find his lost lady - he combined them into a great allegory of the soul's search for God. he made it swift, exciting and topical, lavishing upon it all his learning and wit, all his tenderness, humour and enthusiam, and all his poetry. In Hell, the first of the three parts, the poet is conducted by the spirit of the poet Virgil through the twenty four circles of Hell in the first stage of his arduous journey towards God.
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