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A Reading Room seriesDante and Virgil continue onwards through a forest—a forest of “thick-crowded ghosts.” Not very far into this forest Dante sees a fire blazing in the darkness. Even though they are still somewhat distant from… more

Una serie di Reading Room su La Divina Commedia

Dante viene svegliato da un forte tuono. Si alza in piedi, si guarda intorno e cerca di capire dove si trova. È in piedi sul bordo di una valle profonda, buia e nebbiosa che… more

A Reading Room series on The Divine Comedy

Dante is awoken by a loud clap of thunder. He gets up to his feet, looks around, and tries to comprehend where he is. He is standing on the edge of a deep, dark, misty valley reverberating… more

Una serie di Reading Room su La Divina Commedia

Mentre Dante e Virgilio entrano nell'anticamera dell'Inferno, Virgilio dice a Dante che tutto il lamento agonizzante che sente sono le voci di coloro che <<visser sanza ‘… more

A Reading Room series on The Divine Comedy

As Dante and Virgil enter the antechamber of Hell, Virgil tells Dante that all the agonized wailing he’s hearing are the voices of those who “lived without infamy or praise”—those who… more

The Eternals, the latest installment in the Marvel cinematic universe, premiered this weekend. While the Marvel universe has not been incorporated into the Online Library of Liberty—surely a temporary oversight—one of the film’s… more

Una serie di Reading Room su La Divina Commedia

Dante è finalmente pronto per entrare all'Inferno, o almeno così crede. Giunto all'ingresso dell'Inferno, legge un'iscrizione sulle porte che, racconta a Virgilio, lo fa fermare:

Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, scheduled for theatrical release on Christmas and streaming on Apple TV+ three weeks later, offers as good an excuse as any to reflect on earlier film productions of Shakespeare’s classic… more

A Reading Room series on The Divine Comedy

Dante is at last ready to enter Hell—or so he thinks. As he reaches the entrance of Hell he reads an inscription on the gates which, he tells Virgil, makes him pause:

Una serie di Reading Room su La Divina Commedia

Virgilio, sentendo per caso i dubbi di Dante che potrebbe essere indegno per questo viaggio, rimprovera Dante per la sua codardia e cerca di rassicurarlo sul fatto che varrà davvero… more

I’ve never really been a fan of horror fiction. With the exception of spooky Victorian gothic novels, a long-standing affection for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the occasional particularly creepy Neil Gaiman moment, I just don’t… more

A Reading Room series on The Divine Comedy

Virgil, overhearing Dante’s doubts that he might be unworthy for this journey, chides Dante for his cowardice, and tries to reassure him that it will indeed be worthwhile for Dante to… more

At Halloween, the monsters gather at our doors for tribute. We expect the caped figures with fangs askew, the werewolves growling for candy, the square-headed toddler with bolts glued to his neck. We are not afraid, because we are… more

Una serie di Reading Room su La Divina Commedia

Prima che Dante intraprenda il suo viaggio attraverso l'inferno con Virgilio, invoca le muse (gli spiriti classici delle arti, nell'antica Grecia e a Roma) per aiutarlo a ricordare -… more

“It was a beautiful place – wild, untouched, above all untouched, with an alien disturbing, secret loveliness.  And it kept its secret. I’d find myself thinking, ‘What I see is nothing – I want what it hides – that is not… more

Francis Spufford’s Light Perpetual was released last May to considerable praise, unsurprising given the multiple awards received by its predecessor, Golden Hill. This new book is regularly referred to—by the author himself, as… more

Una serie di Reading Room su La Divina Commedia

La scorsa settimana abbiamo iniziato il nostro epico viaggio con Dante accompagnando Dante mentre si perde nei boschi, prima di incontrare il suo idolo letterario Virgilio e… more

Pedaling my exercise bicycle is made tolerable by watching history lectures from The Teaching Company’s Great Courses. Today I watched part of a course on the French Revolution and Napoleon. 

A Reading Room series on The Divine Comedy

Last week we began our epic journey with Dante by accompanying him as he is lost in the woods, before meeting his literary idol Virgil and agreeing to set forth with Virgil upon another… more

Una serie di Reading Room su La Divina Commedia

La settimana scorsa abbiamo visto come Dante scrivesse del suo viaggio attraverso l'inferno, il limbo e il paradiso come se si trattasse di un viaggio vero, realmente intrapreso (a… more

I recently had a chance to host a book discussion with Reading Room blogger, Garth Bond, and our friend Steve Pincus about Nicholas McDowell's new book Poet of Revolution: The Making of John Milton, which considers the question of… more

A Reading Room series on The Divine ComedyLast week we saw how Dante wrote about his journey through hell, limbo, and paradise as if it were a real journey that he really undertook (beginning, in his recounting of it, on Good Friday… more

In Marvel's film Black Widow (2021), the Red Guardian (Alexei) praises the achievements of the two women he had pretended to father as part of a Russian sleeper cell: "Yelena, you went on to become the greatest child assassin the… more

A Reading Room blog series on The Divine Comedy

Last week we concluded our introduction to Dante’s Divine Comedy by presenting the seven cardinal lessons that the epic poem can teach us today. If you missed this introduction you… more

Una serie di Reading Room su La Divina Commedia

La scorsa settimana abbiamo iniziato la nostra introduzione alla Divina Commedia di Dante con le prime tre delle sette lezioni generali che possiamo imparare dall'immortale italiano… more