The purpose of this book is to make some of the unparalleled beauty and common sense of The Divine Comedy accessible to many who are wholly unfamiliar with the poem, or are kept from it by its reputed difficulties. Every one who has in him the love of poetry, particularly dramatic poetry, and many a one who believes that he has not, finds himself facing life from a fresh angle when he makes acquaintance with Dante, through his famous drama of justice based on love and hate. Old as his drama is, it is ever new, because it portrays, as no other, the permanent passions of the human race and their unchanging consequences, generation after generation. At the time of original publication in 1916, Alfred M. Brooks was Professor of Fine Arts in Indiana University.