Dante’s Inferno Great Books Course

Experience the life-changing wisdom of a descent through Hell, up Mount Purgatory and soar through the Heavens through one of the world’s greatest poems, Dante’s Commedia, beginning with the Inferno. Travis Patten, the author of “The Purification of Love: Heavenly Ascent from Plato to Dante,” will be your Virgil, ensuring you do not lose your way in Dante’s dark wood and arrive safely home in the Empyrean with God. Dante’s Comedy is a vast panorama encompassing man’s relationship to God and the rest of mankind set against the backdrop of all creation from the depths of Hell to the uppermost realms of Paradise. For Dante, the central fact of existence is free will and the unavoidable consequence of choice. In the Inferno we see the results of sin, but Dante doesn’t want us only to imagine the afterlife, he wants us to look into our own souls and discover what path we are on. As we descend into Hell we will encounter Dante’s most memorable images and hear the poignant stories of damned souls, but all is not lost as it appears and if we read carefully enough we will be able to see what Dante really wants to teach us.