Ascend - The Great Books Podcast

• Dante's Inferno Ep. 7: Cantos 32-34 with Evan Amato

  The frozen heart of hell. Today, Dcn. Harrison Garlick is joined by Mr. Evan Amato to discuss the frozen wastes of the 9th Circle of Hell - the damned guilty of treachery (or complex fraud).Check out thegreatbookspodcast.com for other great books to read!A few questions from our guide to Dante's Inferno:78. What happens in the ninth circle of hell: Treachery (Complex Fraud) (Canto 34)?Pressing onward, Virgil leads the Pilgrim to “Judecca”—named after Judas Iscariot—in which those souls that have betrayed their benefactors or their lords are frozen completely in the ice.[1] The Pilgrim notes the distorted figures, saying: “To me they looked like straws worked into glass.”[2] Finally, the Pilgrim sees the gigantic figure of Satan. The figure of Lucifer, the arch-traitor against his Benefactor and Lord, God, is frozen in the ice to the waist as his six bat-like wings eternally beating—thus, causing the wind that freezes all in the pit of hell.[3] The Pilgrim observes, Satan, who has three faces on his head, “wept from his six eyes, and down three chins were dripping tears mixed with bloody slaver.”[4] Each one of Satan’s faces bears a distinct color—red, yellow, and black—and in each mouth Lucifer “crunched a sinner.”[5] In the mouth of the central red face, Judas, who “suffers most of all,” and is inserted headfirst.[6] The other two souls are inserted legs first and they are Brutus in the black face—“see how he squirms in silent desperation”—and Cassius in the yellow face."[7] Bringing their journey to an end, Virgil, with the Pilgrim on his back, first climbs down the hairy shanks of Satan, and second, after passing the center of the earth, climbs up the legs of Satan.[8] Heading out toward the Mount of Purgatory, the Pilgrim and Virgil exit the earth and behold the stars in the sky.[9] 79. Why does Dante the Poet use ice to describe the bottom of hell?In Aristotle’s Metaphysics, when he must answer how does the Unmoved Mover move all things if the Unmoved Mover does not move, he answers: love (eros). God is Pure Act, and all things are drawn to him by love—in other words, though unmoved himself, he is the source of all movement in the cosmos. As such, the pit of hell would be the furthest from God; thus, evil, as a type of anti-movement and anti-love finds a poetic home in the imagery of ice. Furthermore, evil is a privation of the good. Evil is not something real but rather something unreal, a lack. Evil is like a hole in the ground or like darkness is to light. Similarly, evil is like cold is the heat. Coldness is not necessarily real per se but is rather the absence of heat. Evil is the absence of good. As such, ice again makes a good image of evil and a fitting pit to a hell structured according to love.80. Why is the...

  --------  

  1:43:53
• Dante's Inferno Ep. 6: Cantos 26-31 with Dr. Donald Prudlo

  We finish the 8th Circle of hell! Dcn. Harrison Garlick and Dr. Donald Prudlo of the University of Tulsa discuss pits 8-10 of the 8th Circle of Dante's Inferno (Cantos 26-31). Dr. Prudlo is an incredibly talented Catholic scholar! You'll want to hear what he has to say - especially about Odysseus, Troy, and the Garden of Eden.Visit thegreatbookspodcast.com for more resources!From our guide:64. What happens in the eighth ditch (Cantos 26-27)?Overlooking the eighth ditch, the Pilgrim and Virgil view the punishment of those souls King Minos found guilty of deception or evil counsel.[1] The Pilgrim sees columns of flames, and Virgil explains, “there are souls concealed within these moving fires, each one swathed in his burning punishment.”[2] Dante the Pilgrim observes a “flame with its tip split in two,” to which Virgil explains the flame contains the souls of both Ulysses and Diomedes.[3] The contrapasso of the eighth bolgia is that these deceivers burn as tongues of flame just as their tongues in life brought forth pain and destruction.[4] Moving on, the Pilgrim and Virgil meet another soul, Guido da Montefeltro, “a soldier who became a friar in his old age; but he was untrue to his vows when, at the urging of Pope Boniface VIII, he counseled the use of fraud in the pope’s campaign against the Colonna family. He was damned to hell because he failed to repent of his sins, trusting instead in the pope’s fraudulent absolution.”[5] Virgil and the Pilgrim press on, where, coming to the ninth ditch, they see “those who, sowing discord, earned Hell’s wages.”[6]65. Does fire have a special role in the Inferno?Given its name, most expect fire to be the normative punishment of the Inferno—but it is not. The question is whether the role fire does play has a special pedagogical purpose. Dr. Prudlo sets forth that fire, especially as seen here as “tongues of fire,” represents an “anti-Pentecostal sin.” Fire plays a role in the punishment of the blasphemers, sodomites, usurers, simonists, and false counselors. Fire, as Dr. Prudlo notes, is the “most noble element in Dante’s world,” and it plays a certain “refined punishment” in the Inferno. It seems to signify a certain “unnatural abuse” within the sin, an “abuse of some special gift that God has given us.” The role of fire in the Inferno merits further consideration.66. Is there a special relation between Ulysses (Odysseus) and Dante?Dante the Poet arguably has a certain fondness for Ulysses. As Dr. Prudlo observes: “genius untethered to virtue is one of the most dangerous things that can possibly exist.” Dante the Poet and Ulysses are both geniuses. Yet, Ulysses cannot find rest upon returning to Ithaca—the question for knowledge calls him away from his wife, son, and kingdom to journey out into unknown Ocean. He sails passed the Pillars of Heracles, which mark the boundaries of mortal men, and, upon seeing Mount Purgatory, God strikes his ship and all lives are lost. Dr. Prudlo remarks that where Ulysses attempted to make it to Mount Purgatory despite God, Dante the Pilgrim will make it to Mount Purgatory with God....

  --------  

  1:56:37
• Dante's Inferno Ep. 5: Cantos 18-25 with Noah and Gabriel of CLT

  Seducers, Flatterers, Sorcerers, and more! Dcn. Harrison Garlick is joined by Noah Tyler, CFO of the Classic Learning Test, and Gabriel Blanchard, a staff writer for CLT, to discuss the first part of the 8th Circle: Simple Fraud (Cantos 18-25).Check out thegreatbookspodcast.com for more information.Check out our written GUIDE to Dante's Inferno: 80+ Questions and Answer.FROM THE GUIDE:53. What happens in the Eighth Circle of Hell: Simple Fraud (Canto 18)The Eighth Circle of Hell holds the souls of those King Minos found guilty of simple fraud and is composed of “ten stone ravines called Malebolge (Evil Pockets), and across each bolgia is an arching bridge.”[1] Each of the ten bolgias (pits, ditches, pockets, etc.) is filled with souls guilty of a different species of simple fraud: (1) panders and seducers (2) flatters (3) simoniacs (4) sorcerers (5) barrators (6) hypocrites (7) thieves (8) deceivers (9) sowers of discord and (10) falsifiers. Each bolgia in Malebolgia exhibits a different contrapasso.54. What happens in the first ditch (Canto 18)?After leaving Geryon, the Pilgrim observes the souls in the first ditch. Here, “two files of naked souls walked on the bottom” with each line walking a different direction.[2] The Pilgrim also notes, “I saw horned devils with enormous whips lashing the backs of shades with cruel delight.”[3] The souls here are pimps or panders in one line and seducers in the other. Notably, Dante the Pilgrim sees Jason the Argonaut suffering amongst the seducers.[4] Notice, however, that these seducers are not those who fell into passion, like Francisca, but rather those who act with malice to deceive others. It is the malice of malevolent nature of these sins that distinguish them from the incontinent sins.55. What happens in the second ditch (Canto 18)?Leaving the first bolgia (ditch), the Pilgrim and Virgil come upon the souls of the flatters suffering in the second ditch. The Pilgrim observes, “Now we could hear the shades in the next pouch whimpering, making snorting grunting souls… from a steaming stench below, the banks were coated with a slimy mold that suck to them like glue, disgusting to behold and worse to smell.”[5] Here, grunting in a ditch of excrement, are the flatterers. The contrapasso of the second ditch invites a stark juxtaposition between the honeyed words of flattery and the sordid reality of their deception. The Pilgrim makes this quite evident in his observation of Thais: “that repulsive and disheveled tramp scratching herself with shitty fingernails, spreading her legs while squatting up and down.”[6] Repulsed by Thais, Virgil and the Pilgrim move on. It should be noted, however, that this flattery is a malicious flattery intended to deceive.56. How is flattery a worst sin than lust, murder, or suicide?

  --------  

  2:17:55
• Dante's Inferno Ep. 4: Cantos 12-17 with Fr. Thomas Esposito, O. Cist.

  We enter the circle of violence. This week Dcn. Harrison Garlick is joined by Fr. Thomas Esposito, O. Cist., a Cistercian priest who teaches at the University of Dallas, to discuss the seventh circle of Dante's Inferno: (1) violence against neighbor (2) violence against self and (3) violence against God & nature.Check out our website for more info: thegreatbookspodcast.com.Check out our 80+ Question and Answer Guide to the Inferno.From the guide:43. What happens in the Seventh Circle of Hell: Violence Toward Neighbor (Canto 12)?As Virgil and the Pilgrim press on toward the Seventh Circle of Hell, Virgil explains the topography of hell. The City of Dis marks the transition from upper hell to lower hell, while the Seventh Circle of Hell marks the beginning of the sins of violence (represented by the lion in the dark woods in Canto 1). Virgil explains, “violence can be done to God, to self, or to one’s neighbor.”[1] Next, Virgil explains there are two types of fraud. First, there is the “simple fraud” of the second circle of lower hell, the Eight Circle of Hell overall, in which “hypocrites, flatters, dabblers in sorcery, falsifiers, thieves, and simonists, pander, seducers, grafters, and like filth” are punished.”[2] Second, there is “complex fraud" of the final circle of hell, the Ninth Circle, in which are punished traitors who betrayed the “love Nature enjoys and that extra bond between men which creates a special trust.”[3]Virgil and the Pilgrim enter into the Seventh Circle of Hell, which is guarded by the Minotaur—a half-man and half-bull creature from classical mythology known for its undying rage.[4] With the Minotaur consumed by its own anger, Virgil and the Pilgrim continue on and come upon a great “river of blood that boils souls of those who through their violence injured others”—known as the Phlegethon.[5] The contrapasso is made more severe by herds of centaurs galloping along the bloody riverbanks and shooting with arrows at “any daring soul emerging above the bloody level of his guilt.”[6]As the Pilgrim observes, the souls are sunk in a river of blood to a depth commensurate with their violence: the tyrants, such as Alexander, Dionysius, and Attila, who “dealt in bloodshed and plundered wealth” are sunken to their eyelids; the murders who dealt in bloodshed are sunk up to their throats; and the rest of the violent are sunk to various lesser degrees.[7] Musa notes, “the sins of violence are also the Sins of Bestiality,” and the bestial and violent nature of these sins are seen in the theme of half-animal and half-human creatures: the furies on the walls of the City of Dis, the Minotaur whose very enraged existence spawned from an act of bestiality, and the centaurs who were known in classical mythology for violence and rape.[8]44. What else should be noted about the first area of the seventh circle?Lower hell is characterized by sins of malice, and Fr. Thomas offered malevolent as another good...

  --------  

  1:42:51
• Dante's Inferno Ep. 3: Cantos 6-11 with Dr. Jason Baxter

  Today, we finish lower hell. Dcn. Harrison Garlick is joined by Dr. Jason Baxter of Benedictine College to discuss cantos 6-11 of Dante's Inferno.Check out thegreatbookspodcast.com for other great books!Check out our Patreon for our 80+ Question & Answer guide to the Inferno.From our guide:27. The Third Circle of Hell – Gluttony (Canto 6) Musa explains the third circle and the contrapasso, “the shades in this circle are the gluttons, and their punishment fits their sin. Gluttony, like all the sins of incontinence, subjects reason to desire; in this case desire is a voracious appetite. Thus, the shades howl like dogs—in desire, without reason; they are sunk in slime, the image of their excess. The warm comfort their gluttony brought them in life here has become cold, dirty rain and hail.”[1] The beast Cerberus—a “three-headed doglike beast”—dwells in the third circle.[2] The beast both represents the sin of gluttony through its own immense appetite and further punishes those shades in the third circle as he “flays and mangles” the shades of that circle.[3] Musa also notes “with his three heads, he appears to be a prefiguration of Lucifer and thus another infernal distortion of the Trinity.”[4] On their way toward the fourth circle, Dante the Pilgrim asks Virgil whether the punishment of the souls in hell will be increased or lessened on the Final Judgment.[5] Virgil explains that the pain of those in hell will be “more perfect” after the Final Judgment, as the souls in hell will be reunited with their bodies after the bodily resurrection.[6]30. The Fourth Circle of Hell – the Prodigal & Miserly (VII)As Virgil and the Pilgrim enter into the fourth circle of hell, they are greeted by Plutus (Pluto), the Roman god of wealth, who speaks incoherently and whom Virgil dismisses by calling him “cursed Wolf of hell.”[1] The reference to “wolf” recalls the she-wolf at the beginning and reminds the reader the Pilgrim is still journeying through the circles of sins related to incontinence. Here the Pilgrim sees shades “to the sound of their own screams, straining their chests, they rolled enormous weights, and when they met and clashed against each other… screaming ‘Why hoard?,’ the other side, ‘why waste?’”[2] The Pilgrim sees the contrapasso of the miserly and the prodigal, who, forming two semi-circles, push their heavy weights (symbolizing their material wealth) and shove against each other (as their disordered uses of wealth were opposite).[3] Virgil teaches the Pilgrim about Lady Fortune, who serves as an angel of God determining the fortunes of men and nations.[4] Note that Lady Fortune is often depicted with a wheel, and that this circle of hell resembles a giant broken wheel of the shades that mismanaged their...

  --------  

  1:54:22

Más podcasts de Arte

Podcasts a la moda de Arte

Acerca de Ascend - The Great Books Podcast