Dante's Divine Comedy

Dante encounters seven popes in the Divine Comedy, five in hell, one in purgatory and one in paradise - that last being Saint Peter. His condemnation of individual popes and, I think, the papacy is extraordinarily strong and discomforting to relate. 

But was it all revenge? Did he fall for the politics too? Or was his message one of renewal, revival and reunion with God?

Dante was concerned about salvation, the role of women and friars, the love of the gospel, and the fate of Christianity. His critique presages the Reformation. His vision matters today.

For more on Mark's guide to the Divine Comedy see - https://www.markvernon.com/dantes-divine-comedy

0:00 The context of Dante's critique
6:22 Celestine V and holiness: the resigning pope
9:04 Anastasius II, Aristotle and authority
10:48 Simony: the curse and crime of the church - Nicholas III & Boniface VIII
16:32 Pope Francis and Luke's icon of the Virgin and Child
18:33 The conversion of Constantine and ecclesiastical power
19:54 Dante's mothers - the church or the pagan Virgil?
21:12 Adrian V in purgatory
24:20 The beguines as guides and the whore of Babylon
28:26 Saint Peter's condemnation in paradise
30:04 Beatrice's last words condemning Clement V
32:24 Dante's political conclusions
36:36 Dante's ecclesiastical conclusions
39:14 A Christianity beyond Christianity

This talk was first given to Idler Drinks.
For more on Mark's work on Dante - https://www.markvernon.com/dantes-divine-comedy

“Circles of hell" has become commonplace in language. But what was Dante trying to show us when he wrote the inferno? What has been lost in translation, with this first canticle in Dante’s trilogy now part of a secular culture?

Jason Baxter talks about his new translation of the Inferno with Mark Vernon. They discuss what Dante could convey in language and why the text never ceases to offer fresh insights. How can we understand his encounters with figures from Virgil to Ulysses? What is it truly to be trapped in a hellish state? Why is the road down the necessary precursor to the road into God’s presence?

Jason’s new translation is published by Angelico Press - https://angelicopress.com/products/the-divine-comedy-inferno
Mark’s introduction and guide is too - https://www.markvernon.com/books/dantes-divine-comedy-book

00:00 What Dante could do with language
9:05 Dante and the infernal landscape of today
12:50 Distraction and seeing the truth of ourselves
19:18 Intelligence as reason and love
26:33 Why must Dante descend into hell?
36:08 What was Virgil’s ultimate destiny?
41:30 The fulness of divinity we are called to
48:07 Jason’s translation of the famous opening line
56:20 Jason’s future plans

Rowan Williams and Jesse Armstrong talked at The Idler festival, partly around the idea, caught in the expression, “boring as hell”. But is that right, they asked, when a drama like Succession so clearly appeals to us?

The question is fundamental, for an age inclined to regard hell as appealing or intriguing, is one on the way to being lost. 

Drawing on Dante and William Blake, two great diagnostic writers about different states of mind, this talk explores how the passions of the soul, to use Williams’s expression, can hinder and help us on our way. 

I then think about how various facets of life change when known from within hellish, purgatorial and paradisal perspectives - movement, words, love, time, memory, possessing, faces, wonder.

Hell is boring, not from its own perspective, which knows nothing else, but from that of purgatory and paradise. A time that thinks hell is the most interesting place to be is in hell; one that can still say “boring as hell” has at least a flicker of hope.

See Dante's Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey - https://www.markvernon.com/books/dantes-divine-comedy-book

Dante lived through a period of almost total social collapse. Civil war and city-state terror, practiced by the church as much as secular powers, drove him into exile for the last 20 years of his life. For a while, he lost everything. But then, through the trauma, he regained a ground and rediscovered the fullness of life.

The Divine Comedy is the product of that transformation. The journeys through hell, purgatory and paradise hold nothing back, be that terrible tortures of extraordinary delights. He wrote for himself, for his readers including us, but also as a warning to his time and future times, such as our ours.

So what has Dante got to say to now? What does his analysis illuminate? Much, I think, as I explore in this thought.

For more on Dante and my own book see - https://www.markvernon.com/books/dantes-divine-comedy-book

My earlier thoughts on Plato, Aristotle and Jesus are at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts.