The 9 circles of hell are a popular literary reference through the ages. Knowing inferno helps you understand future works that you’ll encounter in western lite

The 9 circles of hell are a popular literary reference through the ages. Knowing inferno helps you understand future works that you’ll encounter in western literature. The other two not as much afaik. For what it’s worth, in my neck of the woods we always learned that The Divine Comedy is a trilogy and dove into Inferno.