In this week’s episode of Universal History, Richard Rohlin and I give an introduction to Dante’s Divine Comedy, discussing its historical and political context, Dante’s motivations and his point of view, and why the Comedia is the greatest work of Western Literature. Join us for the first course on the Divine Comedy, starting May 8th. Dante’s Inferno: https://www.thesymbolicworld.com/courses-pages/dantes-inferno Timestamps: 00:00 - Coming up 01:09 - Intro music 01:34 - Introduction 05:33 - Dante's personal story 05:54 - Who is Dante? 09:12 - Dante and Italian 11:08 - The politics at the time 13:44 - The Investiture Controversy 15:49 - The Protestant Reformation 16:39 - The spiritual and the temporal 18:38 - Dante's position 22:09 - Dante's exile and crisis 23:08 - The Divine Comedy 24:32 - 3 Sources 25:01 - Beatrice 26:52 - Aeneid 27:42 - Greek and Roman myth in Christianity 29:25 - The Judeo-Christian apocalyptic tradition 31:05 - A hierarchy of guides 34:49 - Paradiso 36:10 - The Inferno 39:11 - Apocalyptic texts 42:39 - The image of descent 44:25 - Limbo 47:20 - Dante's POV 51:35 - Viewing sin 53:35 - Sin in Purgatorio 57:19 - Paradiso 57:55 - Final remarks 💻 Website and blog: http://www.thesymbolicworld.com 🔗 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/jonathanpageau 🗣 Join The Symbolic World Community for discussions about symbolism: https://thesymbolicworld.com/subscribe 🔒 BECOME A PATRON: https://thesymbolicworld.com/subscribe 📱 SOCIAL MEDIA Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheSymbolicWorld Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/pageaujonathan Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonathan.pageau Our website designers: https://www.resonancehq.io/ My intro was arranged and recorded by Matthew Wilkinson.