| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: catalyst to other artists. The Danteum, a modern design inspired by a
medieval poem, is but one example. Dante's poem is filled with characters
epitomizing the full range of vices and virtues of human personalities.
Dante's characters come from his present and literature's past; they are
mythological, biblical, classical, ancient, and medieval. They, rather than
Calliope and her sisters, were Dante's muses.
'La Divina Commedia' seems a natural candidate to complete Project
Gutenberg's first milleditio and to begin its second thousand e-texts.
Although distinctly medieval, its continuum of influence spans the
Renaissance and modernity. Terragni saw his place within the Comedy as
surely as Dante saw his own. We too fit within Dante's understanding of the
 The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: light, frivolous young fellow, and will only smile in your
face. And besides, there is such a glare of the sun about him,
that he will quite blind my poor eyes, which I have almost wept
away already."
"You have promised to be my companion," answered Ceres. "Come,
let us make haste, or the sunshine will be gone, and Phoebus
along with it."
Accordingly, they went along in quest of Phoebus, both of them
sighing grievously, and Hecate, to say the truth, making a
great deal worse lamentation than Ceres; for all the pleasure
she had, you know, lay in being miserable, and therefore she
 Tanglewood Tales |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling: Though she gave it her own child's name.
And the dead child dripped on her breast,
And her own in the shroud lay stark;
And "God forgive us, mother," she said,
"We let it die in the dark!"
EVARRA AND HIS GODS
 Verses 1889-1896 |