Nauseous and revolting images seem to have had a fascination for his mind; and he repeatedly places before his readers, with all the energy of his incomparable style, the most loathsome objects of the sewer and the dissecting-room.
There is another peculiarity in the poem of Dante, which, I think, deserves notice.

Ancient mythology has hardly ever been successfully interwoven with modern poetry.

One class of writers have introduced the fabulous deities merely as allegorical representatives of love, wine, or wisdom.

This necessarily renders their works tame and cold.

We may sometimes admire their ingenuity; but with what interest can we read of beings of whose personal existence the writer does not suffer us to entertain, for a moment, even a conventional belief?
Even Spenser's allegory is scarcely tolerable, till we contrive to forget that Una signifies innocence, and consider her merely as an oppressed lady under the protection of a generous knight.
Those writers who have, more judiciously, attempted to preserve the personality of the classical divinities have failed from a different cause.