Inferno, Canto 32 with Dr. Isaac Blois
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- čas přidán 26. 06. 2024
- Dr. Isaac Blois of the Torrey Honors College reflects on Canto 32 of Dante's Inferno.
100 Days of Dante is brought to you by Baylor University in collaboration with the Torrey Honors College at Biola University, University of Dallas, Templeton Honors College at Eastern University, the Gonzaga-in-Florence Program and Gonzaga University, and Whitworth University, with support from the M.J. Murdock Trust. To learn more about our project, and read with us, visit 100daysofdante.com
The enthusiasm and energy is palpable. I love it. Thank you for the wonderful reflections. This so much appreciated.
Thank you Dr Blois. “God’s merciful purging”is a beautiful term.
Good to see you using Anthony Esolen's edition, Dr Isaac!
I loved this presentation - with Isaac's informal style. Thank you.
Thank you for a truly inspiring and thoughtful lecture. I too wondered why Dante the pilgrim went suddenly for that hair yanking assault on Bocca. It rendered a picture of a base wrestling match that I watched on TV as a child but you have answered my question of why Dante would put something like that into his poem. Yes indeed, Sin makes people less free.
When is pity appropriate? I will see that question in a new light after this Canto’s explanation. Thanks.
Canto 32: The Ninth Circle, Cocytus, devoid of love of God, of Neighbor and of Self consists of a frozen lake of tears. Its sinners are encased in icy lamentations, except for their heads which bear positions depending upon the degree of the treachery the sinners had committed against people who, because of the relationships that had existed among them, should have expected their complete trust. Those who committed acts of deceit against kin were encased in ice up to their teeth-chattering heads, dropped forward so that their tears did not freeze on their cheeks nor crystalize their eyelids. Their zone was named Caina, in remembrance of Cain who, out of jealousy, had murdered his own brother. Here, Dante encountered two Tuscan brothers who had killed one another over their inheritance. Although they were buried chest-to-chest, with their hair tangled in a single mass, they had movement sufficient to allow them to bang their foreheads together in pain, frustration and anger. Moving towards the center of Cocytus, Dante kicked the protruding head of an individual sinner in the next zone, Antenora. Dante’s foot may have been applied accidently or on purpose; however, the poet exhibited his own rage by pulling out hanks of hair from this Florentine traitor, whose head was rigidly fixed in an upright position so that his tears froze upon his face and sealed his own eyelids. Passing further into the zone of Antenora, Dante encountered two more sinners encased in a single hole, with their heads immobilized except for the jaws of one gnawing on the brain stem of the other. Dante, the poet, like a TV writer for a horror series, postpones describing this cannibalism until his next canto. In this canto, it is sufficient that he had established, the gravitas, the weight, for Hell’s ultimate circle of all-encompassing frigidity and the vast separation from the warming and unifying flame of the Holy Spirit.
Love this. Sin is an affront to God and of course is ugly. Professor does a great job of relating a heart hardened to sin to being frozen in ice. I think I would enjoy his class.
He is excellent in class, and he is truly gifted at relating academic material to the personal, spiritual walk of students all while maintaining the intellectual integrity of the material itself. I have been blessed to learn under Dr. Blois.
Thank you for these wonderful insights.
Wonderful presentation! Thank you Dr. Blois.
Great presentation. Thanks Dr. Blois!
Brilliant, thank you.
As they descend deeper and deeper into the pit, the sins are graver and the punishment more horrible to behold. Thus, the pilgrim and the reader are pushed to extremes of pity and scorn. He wisely learns that pity is not deserved here at this level.
This is the black pit of sin. Beware, fellow pilgrims. Have hope.
👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽. Was not ready for this talk to end.
When one hits rock bottom they learn to truly detest sin.
I for one can't wait to get out of Hell! Good, clear presentation.