Going to hell is usually a tough break. But the poet Michael Palma doesn't seem to mind. The challenge to approaching a translation of Dante's original Italian this way is that it means you can't ...

The American modernist Marianne Moore once wrote that poems are imaginary gardens with real toads in them. This applies nicely to Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” Its garden is the poem’s otherworld—based on ...

One of the funniest works of Roman literature to survive—and the only one that has ever made me laugh out loud—is a skit, written by the philosopher Seneca, about the Emperor Claudius’ adventures on ...

The Divine Comedy (the orchestral-pop project of Northern Irish singer/songwriter/composer Neil Hannon) is releasing a new album, Rainy Sunday Afternoon, on September 19. Now he has shared its third ...