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Recapping Dante: Canto 11, or Foul Smells and Boring Theological Discussions...
Detail of a miniature of Dante and Virgil looking into the tomb of Pope Anastasius. As Dante and Virgil make their way through the City of Dis (and see the tomb of yet another pope), Dante has a moment...
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Recapping Dante: Canto 16, or the Pilgrim’s Progress
Giovanni Stradano, Canto XVI, 1587. This winter, we’re recapping the Inferno. Read along! At this point in The Inferno, as Dante continues to test, stretch, and deplete Virgil’s patience, let us...
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Recapping Dante: Canto 17, or Dante Goes to Los Angeles
This winter, we’re recapping the Inferno. Read along! William Blake, Geryon Converting Dante and Virgil Down Towards Malebolge A transcript from the Dante’s Inferno writers’ room. Executive Producer:...
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Recapping Dante: Canto 18, or Beware the Bolognese
Sandro Botticelli, Canto XVIII, colored drawing on parchment, c. 1480 Canto 18 is perhaps the unsung workhorse of the Inferno—at only 136 lines, it is filled to the brim with political commentary,...
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Recapping Dante: Canto 29, or Don’t Trust the Midas Touch
William Blake, Canto XXIX We’re recapping the Inferno. Read along! This week: The price you pay for turning stuff into gold. Having read the incandescent poetry of cantos 26-28, it’s difficult not to...
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Recapping Dante: Canto 32, or Area Man Discovers Hell Has Literally Frozen Over
Canto XXXII We’re recapping the Inferno. Read along! This week: breaking news from the thirty-second canto. INFERNO—After traveling nonstop for many hours through an array of chthonic geological...
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Recapping Dante: Canto 34, or “It Is Time for Us to Leave”
A colorized version of Gustave Doré’s illustration for Canto XXXIV. We’re recapping the Inferno. Read along! This week: the final canto. My relationship with Dante can be traced back to a Saturday...
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The Nineties Are History, and Other News
Anthony Aziz and Sammy Cutcher, Man with a Computer (detail), 1992. Image via Hyperallergic Today is the first-ever Dylan Day: a commemoration of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood, which he debuted at 92Y...
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John Milton’s Strange Christmas Poem
“Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people … ” —Neil Gaiman, American Gods (2001) Some eccentric designer should craft a...
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When Diderot Met Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet, a.k.a Voltaire, and Denis Diderot. In mid-December 1776, the eighty-three-year-old Voltaire pulled out a piece of paper and dashed off a note to Diderot. Having been exiled from...
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