Engraver: Auguste Doré

Ciacco speaks to Dante about Florentine strife, in an engraving by Gustav Doré

This week I am taking a break from posting my lectures on Dante’s Inferno and instead sharing with you a short introduction I recorded on the character of Milton’s Satan from Paradise Lost. The text considered here is from Book 4.

CS Lewis wrote that "To admire [the character of Milton's] Satan is to give one's vote to...a world of lies and propaganda, of wishful thinking, of incessant autobiography."

Sound familiar? It should. Not only is this truth found in Dante’s Inferno but in our own culture today. “Incessant autobiography” captures our collective hell of online echo chambers, eternally repeating our own self-admiration without joy or peace.

Enjoy the recording and discussion. I’ll be back next week with another episode on Dante.

Dr. Mark McCullough

Paolo and Francesca da Rimini by British artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, painted in 1855.

There is no greater pain

than to remember, in our present grief,

past happiness.

For this defect and for no other guilt,

we here are lost. In this alone we suffer:

Cut off from hope, we live on in desire.