Catholic Literature

[ChristianMed]

Is Dante the best Catholic author of all time?
Who rivals him? Thomas Aquinas? or maybe St. Augustine?

[Dna8]

I am not Catholic, but Paul Verlaine's collection, Sagesse is one of my two favorite poetical works.

Here is some interesting context:

Verlaine was a man who throughout his life oscillated between two poles: at one pole, debauchery, drunkenness, licentiousness, violence, a dangerous sort of whimsy, caprice, turbulence after turbulence. Indeed, early on in his career he was put on the Vatican's Black List on account of the publishing of a poetical work centred on homoeroticism and transgression.

And yet, later on in his life, after having been imprisoned for homosexuality and shooting a pistol at his lover (Rimbaud) due to an argument over a fish the former had procured at market, and the latter had apparently regarded with disdain.. Verlaine wrote Sagesse, or so it is said, in a Belgian prison cell..

Today, Sagesse is considered by many Catholic commentators as a masterwork of Catholic literature..