Dante is famous across the world, but many people in the English-speaking parts of the world read his Divine Comedy at a pretty young age, and a lot of its meaning is something we just don't get.  I'm nearly 40 now, and I'm looking at Inferno for the first time in 25 years, and so much of it makes sense now, all the politics went completely over my head when I was a kid.  The religious and moral themes got through, but it never occurred to me to wonder who all the people really were, that Dante was talking directly to very powerful people who were his enemies and his friends.

Many Americans probably do not know that Dante basically standardized the modern Italian language (e.g. I never knew, I don't think that was taught at any school I attended).

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