Why Dante?

We all really know 'Why Dante,' its not a hard thing to figure out. It's the same reason 'Why the Bible.' We, as humans, want to know where we go after we die. We want to be told theirs more to this world than just what we see now and most importantly we want to know that those that get ahead through underhanded means will pay in the end. That's it, that's why Dante. Its nothing close to why Dante wrote the book, its quite obvious he just wanted to put his political opponents in hell. Who doesn't right?

'In limbo I put my parents cause they didn't give me twenty bucks the other day but, yaknow, they're still my parents. In the ninth ring I put all my teachers...'

On Thursday Dante was compared to Shakespeare. Thats inaccurate. Dante is timeless yes, I'll probably help my kinds cheat their way through an analysis of Dante someday, but it is no Shakespeare. Shakespeare is timeless and downright wonderful because he had a way with words, he knew how they fit and he could mold the English language until it was soft and smooth and brilliant. Dante is crude and crass in English.
(this is to say nothing of his Italian, I don't know Italian and this is an English not and Italian course so honestly, how good Dante's Inferno sounds in Italian does not really matter in the slightest)
Dante, however, has a way with ideas and symbology which is why he can be analyzed to such an extent as this. Dante could easily be replaced with something like "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" or any equally allegorical peice of writing. Dante's writing, however, is more timeless, more "classic" because it involves religion, the unknown and most imporantly what happens after death. This gives the story the illusion of deeper meaning, the same as the Bible, when really its just a political jab.
Honestly, how could such a story be taken seriously? With Dante's constant breaking of the the fourth wall and chatting with the reader about how horrible the experiences were. Does he beleive that people actually thought he went to hell? Is such mad beleif possible, even way back in the 1300's? I really don't think so. He used his writing and his symbology as an outlet for his political opinions on the wrongdoings of his opponents and rivals.