Tag Archives: Inferno

Does Lit Lead to Illicit Sex?

By Robin Bates | Published: August 25, 2020

Dante’s beautifully tragic account of Paolo and Francesca captures–as many great works do–the dangers of total absorption in a relationship.

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The Good Place & Dante’s Inferno

By Robin Bates | Published: May 14, 2020

The show “The Good Place” provides insight into Dante’s Inferno.

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Trump & Inferno’s 9 Circles–Pick One

By Robin Bates | Published: April 27, 2020

If Trump were to be assigned to one of Dante’s nine circles of hell, where would he end up? I set forth the possibilities.

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What Awaits COVID Grafters

By Robin Bates | Published: April 13, 2020

Grafters with their eyes on the Coronavirus Relief Plan will have a special place (Circle 8, Ditch 5) in Dante’s “Inferno.”

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Neruda: Let’s All Stop for a Moment

By Robin Bates | Published: April 12, 2020

In “Keeping Quiet,” Neruda offers us a powerful challenge in the face of the world’s horrors: what if the entire world were to observe a moment of stillness?

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Homer, Virgil & Dante Visit the Afterlife

By Robin Bates | Published: April 6, 2020

In my Representative Masterpieces course, I conclude with Dante’s “Inferno,” where we see sinners creating their own hells.

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Dante on Income Inequality

By Robin Bates | Published: January 13, 2020

Dante puts those who exacerbate income inequality in his fourth circle of hell.

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Lit as a Survival Toolkit

By Robin Bates | Published: January 3, 2019

Thursday Friend and occasional guest blogger Carl Rosin alerted me to a heartfelt Commonweal article by an English professor describing how literature helped her confront and work through childhood abuse. Cassandra Nelson’s difficult history leads to some remarkable insights into trigger warnings, which she opposes. Nelson’s view on trigger warnings is pretty much my own […]

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The Meaning of Hell

By Robin Bates | Published: December 8, 2018

Spiritual Sunday Stephen Greenblatt, the world’s preeminent Shakespearean, has an article about hell in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books that has me thinking about a subject I generally avoid. It’s a smart piece but fairly grim.  For the most part, my view of hell is the one set forth in […]

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