Series Index John Ciardi’s Translation of the Commedia The Heavenly Thesis Defense Dante’s ascent through Heaven’s catechism culminates, as do so many of our educational experiences, with an oral examination.  There’s…

Series Index John Ciardi’s Translation of the Commedia Unexpected Company There’s a certain mindset among progressive-minded folks that one or two significant points of difference, especially on moral questions, means that…

Series Index John Ciardi’s Translation of the Commedia Analogy and Allegory More than in the first two Canticles, Dante spends a great share of his lines in Paradiso telling us, the…

Series Index John Ciardi’s Translation of the Commedia When Knowledge Passes Away Virgil’s long explanation of the genesis of souls and bodies poses a particular sort of intellectual challenge: this version…

Series Index John Ciardi’s Translation of the Commedia The Speech of the Saved I’ve taught Dante’s Purgatorio to three cohorts of upper-division literature students, and each time, the students do alright…

Series Index John Ciardi’s Translation of the Commedia Worthy of the Kingdom Dante couldn’t care less about my evangelical sensibility and sensitivities, and I love him for that. Even beyond the…

Series Index John Ciardi’s Translation of the Commedia Hypocrites and Church-Thieves Living seven hundred years after Dante’s poetic career makes the final stretch of Inferno a particular philosophical challenge, largely because…

Series Index John Ciardi’s Translation of the Commedia The Democratization of American Sins One popular topic for invention among youth-group kids in the mid-nineties (and I was one for a spell)…

Series Index It’s been a few years since I wrote reflections on my summer reading on Dante, and back then I used to do three posts each summer, one on…

This week’s theme music is “Judas Skin” from the Vigilantes of Love record Slow Dark Train. General Introduction – What’s on the blog? – An historical moment for the Christian…

This week’s music: “Her Right Hand Rules the World,” by They Sang As They Slew, from Get Well (Northern Records, 2004). Great band, great record, great Tolkien reference. General Introduction…