Some random thoughts here:
The brilliance of My Antonia is that Jim Burden (note name) is an unreliable narrator. It’s a completely different book once you understand that. Many pieces of literature depend on good teaching, which is why they are appropriate to a classroom.
I think of HF as a period piece, no different than The Jungle. The boy narrator is probably why HF gets taught so much in high school, not invalid, but insufficient by itself.
I have never read The Inferno, and so I don’t know if Dante’s criticism of the church is sufficient to make it useful historically, politically, or spiritually. Even without reading it, the frame of criticizing imperial power might make it worth a discussion with college students. I am fairly confident it is better aesthetically than HF.