/lit/ - Literature

Can someone post all of the known D&E pics? Thanks.

To me, The Divine Comedy is the grandest and most ambitious work ever created, simply because of the scale of what it encompasses.

Dante takes the highest of all the literary forms (epic poetry) and writes a story that traverses Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, all the extraworldly realms of existence. In the process, he encounters figures, learning, and ideas from ALL of Western Civilization up to his point. Everything from Homer to Dante's own contemporary poets is included in some form in the Comedy. He's gathered the breadth and depth of all learning that he's aware of and funneled it into a journey across the cosmos as he knows it, all directed toward the highest goal he can think of: praising God.

I think it's time we had a work of similar scale that encompasses everything between the Divine Comedy's completion to our own day. Something that takes the REST of Western thought and organizes it towards a single grand theme.

The Divine Comedy. Get a good translation, read the OTHER TWO CANTICLES, and bask in the majesty of God.

Here's one for you, /lit/.

Is there any instance in the history of philosophy or religion where someone postulates eternal life of the soul WITHOUT the need for a supreme deity, or even any deity at all?

Is there any instance of a philosopher concluding that, even if there were no God, the soul is still immortal, and would continue to exist on some other level after death?

>>4262025
it's more like this

I was in a car crash three years ago, had an NDE
I don't know if that is universally what happens to you when you die, but here's what happened while I was technically dead:

My whole conciousness condensed into a ball of very warm energy in my chest, which then floated out of my body and hovered in the air. I looked down at my parents and the doctors and I felt calm, and didn't want them to be sad but didn't really mind if I was dying or not any more. This part lasted a while and was a lot like a Ketamine trip.

Eventually I floated out of the roof and into a black void, which immediately began filling up with the most complex visual hallucinations I've ever had, like DMT. My head was filled with so many thoughts at rapid pace. Not all of them were necessarily massive revelations or anything, mostly they were incredibly complex cartoons and landscapes, all being pushed into my mind by some unseen being who was frantic for me to absorb as much of this as possible, like it were very important. I became aware of some "people" around me, not really angels or ghosts just creatures that happened to live in this place, and who were very happy to see me. They gathered around me, speaking in a language which I understood instinctively, even though it was gibberish and said I didn't have much time and I must try as hard as possible to remember all of this stuff I'd learned.

In time more and more of them came, until they were forming a swirling vortex of spirits and shapes (Pic related)

I chilled there with them for a while and it was ok but then had the most awful sinking feeling, and felt myself suddenly fall back into my body, and all the pain came rushing back and soon it could got harder and harder to make sense of the experience, until eventually I could hardly remember it at all, let alone convey it to somebody else.

It was pretty neat though, if that's the usual transition into death I'm a-ok with that.

>>1947891
Man I am so smart; in fact, I rather fancy myself.
Here's some Doré.