The Divine Comedy

Dante Alighieri, (translated by Robin Kirkpatrick)

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265 and belonged to a noble but impoverished family. His life was divided by political duties and poetry, the most of famous of which was inspired by his meeting with Bice Portinari, whom he called Beatrice,including La Vita Nuova and The Divine Comedy. He died in Ravenna in 1321. Robin Kirkpatrick is a poet and widely-published Dante scholar. He has taught courses on Dante's Divine Comedy in Hong Kong, Dublin, and Cambridge where is Fellow of Robinson College and Professor of Italian and English Literatures.

Cally Hammond: The first poetry on the list: No other poem could trump it for originality, depth of vision, coherence, completeness. Reading the whole of it is on my to-do list.

Jenny Monds: This masterpiece of Italian literature had to come in the top five for its influence on future writers, including William Blake, T.S. Eliot and C.S. Lewis.

Mark Oakley: This is a fantastic work – the pilgrim-poet – descending and ascending into human being, will and intentionality as well as hell and heaven. This is a spiritually serious scrutiny of whether we are recognisable to ourselves.