It has been a long, often bizarre trip, but at last we have reached the lowest point of Hell and the end of Dante’s catalog of the eternal wages of sin, Inferno. As I think about the Henry Center’s theme, The Sting of Death, it seems to me Dante has made a pretty extensive case…

Reading Journal Home << Previous Entry Next entry >> Horrible Visions (Canto XXV) Cantos XXV and XXVI move quickly from thought to thought such that you can almost miss what holds the episodes together, which is the transgression of right order or proper boundaries. They both feature the poetic modesty we saw at the beginning of…

Reading Journal Home << Previous Entry Next entry >> What Happens in Hell? (Canto XXII) Souls suffer in Hell, but if their suffering is the same at every moment for eternity, does anything really happen? They do for the pilgrim because he’s never seen it before. But events that always occur, predictably and routinely, generally…

Reading Journal Home << Previous Entry Next entry >> Dante’s Hell is, of course, filled with monsters and monstrosities of all sorts, but the deeper into Inferno that Virgil and the pilgrim travel, the more extravagant the monstrosities get—and the more dramatic the commentary on sin. The Disturbing Emblem of Fraud (Canto XVII) Few sins…

Reading Journal Home << Previous Entry Next entry >> As I prepare this post, it’s snowing outside—cold, white flakes that put me in mind of the flaky fires of the seventh circle of Hell. Today’s post is all about such unlikely juxtapositions of image and idea and our condition of interpretation. The Defiant Soul &…

Reading Journal Home << Previous Entry Next entry >> Love, Chaos, and the Order of Hell (Cantos XI-XII) Any decent edition will help you make sense of the order of Hell as Dante envisions it and as Virgil describes it here, so I needn’t rehearse it except to remark on the fact that it is…

Reading Journal Home << Previous Entry Next entry >> In this installment of the Inferno Reading Journal, I muse on how Dante subverts our politics, critiques our stewardship of our resources, calls out heresy as a sin of reason, and employs the Medusa as an image of our sin. To start at the beginning of Sapientia‘s Dante…

Reading Journal Home << Previous Entry Next entry >> Canto IV Grace in Hell? Given the laments and curses of Canto III, and how eager the souls are to cross the Acheron, it’s almost easy to miss that the first place the pilgrim arrives at actually lacks much sign of suffering. Virgil describes the doctrine…

Reading Journal Home << Previous Entry Next entry >> Canto III 1. Death, Hope, Narrative, and Heroism The first time through Inferno, adapting to the meter and encountering its strangeness can distract from some of its real horrors. But if we recall the invitation from Canto II to participate with our imaginations in evoking images the poet…

Reading Journal Home << Previous Entry Next entry >> Continuing my slow start to Dante’s Comedy, I look here at additional themes of love, community, and spiritual journey as the pilgrim prepares to enter the Inferno. N.B.: To get your bearings in our Dante series, start here. Canto II 1. Though the pilgrim has a guide in Virgil,…

Earlier in this series: Why Read Dante How to Read Dante Introduction Dante himself has multiple guides throughout his Comedy, and part of his point is that our souls need assistance on their journeys from perdition (the state of being lost) to salvation. We cannot save ourselves (perhaps an unpopular idea for all times and…

<< Reading Journal Home Next entry >> The reading journey begins! Your own comments and personal reactions are invited. If you’d like to contribute to this series, contact me. N.B.: I’ll be using the Pinsky translation. I encourage you to find whichever translation works for you. See How to Read Dante for an explanation of…