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Dante's Inferno
- A Study on Part I of The Divine Comedy
- Narrated by: Anthony Esolen PhD
- Length: 4 hrs and 38 mins
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Publisher's summary
The Greatest Poem Ever Written
Dante's The Divine Comedy can rightly be called the greatest poem ever written, praised through the ages by a pantheon of writers and scholars. Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850) referred to Dante's crowned "visionary brow". Irish novelist James Joyce (1882-1941) said, "Dante is my spiritual food!" Pope Benedict XV (1854-1922) called Dante "the most eloquent singer of the Christian idea". Even the 20th century literary critic T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) famously wrote that "Shakespeare and Dante divide the world between them, there is no third."
Yet today this great poem is often dismissed by modern scholars for its unabashed Catholic theology and deep spiritual vision. Shrug off the unfounded disdain of these skeptics, and discover for yourself the true grandeur, Christian nature, and sheer artistry of Dante's The Divine Comedy.
Your Expert Guide
Just as Dante needed Virgil to lead him through the bowels of Hell, you also need a true and trustworthy guide. Dr. Anthony Esolen serves as your Virgil in this course on the Inferno, the first canticle of The Divine Comedy. An expert who has taught Dante to college students for more than 20 years, Professor Esolen is also the preeminent modern translator of the entire Divine Comedy from the original Italian.
The Nine Circles of Hell
With Professor Esolen you will enter the terrible gates of Hell and progress level by infernal level to its diabolical depths. Professor Esolen places a special emphasis on the drama of the poem, leading you through each canto in succession. Along the way, you will learn:
- Dante's astonishing human and theological insights
- The destiny of man
- How to find our way out of the wilderness of sin
- The relationship between love and knowledge
- The integral unity between body and soul
Professor Esolen will more than satisfy your curiosity about Hell and the fate of the damned. He will reveal in all its starkness the horror of sin and awaken in your heart a longing for divine love.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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- Narrated by: Heath Miller
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But Jason Asano is settling into his new life. Now, a contest draws young elites to the city of Greenstone to compete for a grand prize. Jason must gather a band of companions if he is to stand a chance against the best the world has to offer. While the young adventurers are caught up in competition, the city leaders deal with revelations of betrayal as a vast and terrible enemy is revealed. Although Jason seems uninvolved, he has unknowingly crossed the enemy’s path before.
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Contrary to common reviews
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Hunting Game
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Prepare to be captivated by acclaimed crime writer Candice Fox’s gripping audio thriller, Hunting Game. Featuring an all-star cast including Krysten Ritter, Anthony Mackie, and Tony Goldwyn, you’re about to enter a high-stakes game of cat and mouse. NYPD Detective Esme 'Es' Compran (Krysten Ritter) finds herself torn between her duty and her own desperate circumstances when a child is kidnapped. The victim's father, Jack Dengate (Tony Goldwyn), is a controversial big pharma CEO whose company's price hikes on life-saving drugs have dire consequences for Es' ailing daughter.
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Man what a GREAT story….BUT……
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Weeds
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Climate activist Shirley Watts has dedicated her entire life to protecting the planet for future generations. But constantly fighting for Mother Earth has taken its toll over time, leaving her in a precarious relationship with her adult daughter, Lela. When Shirley’s latest climate stunt lands her in serious legal jeopardy, Lela reluctantly lets Shirley stay with her and her boyfriend while awaiting her upcoming trial.
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Excellent story
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Ghost Stories: Stephen Fry's Definitive Collection
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As the days grow shorter and the temperature drops, Halloween approaches. Come, brave listener, pull up a chair, and spend some time with master storyteller Stephen Fry as he tells us some of his favourite ghost stories of all time, in truly terrifying spatial audio. From the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow to the tortured spirits of M.R. James, from Edgar Allan Poe’s terrifying tale of a doppelganger to Charlotte Riddell’s Open Door that should definitely stay shut, join Stephen as he tells you some truly terrifying tales.
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Wonderful narration. Mediocre stories.
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Find Her
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It’s Christmas Day at Wilder House, and three magical winter weddings are set to begin. But as the tables are arranged, and the food is prepared, a perfect storm hits, cutting every guest from the rest of the world. Most little girls dream of the perfect wedding. But this bride stumbles alone into the snow, her silk train dragging through dirt, her hands bloody from the murder she just committed. Now there is at least one killer roaming the unforgiving landscape surrounding Wilder House. Who else will die on Christmas Day?
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a little bit of wicked fun
- By A. Bohn on 01-25-24
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The Bedroom Window
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My darling little boy Albie adores playing at our new neighbours’ house. And after the terrible year we’ve had, I feel so lucky that we can start over in this perfect place, with new friends who treat Albie like the son they never had. He can’t stop talking about the tree house they’re building him, and the cookies they bake together. But as time passes, something starts to feel wrong. Why don’t they ever open the front door more than a crack? They told me they had no children so who does the small pink tricycle I saw in their hall belong to?
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Miss Lucy-price Lewis
- By Angie on 06-07-23
By: K. L. Slater
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The most famous of the three canticles that compose The Divine Comedy, "Inferno" describes Dante's descent into Hell midway through his life, with Virgil as a guide. As he descends through nine concentric circles of increasingly agonizing torture, Dante encounters doomed souls that include the pagan Aeneas, the liar Odysseus, the suicidal Cleopatra, and his own political enemies, damned for their deceit.
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This one needs a companion book
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epic poem
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Dramatic, intense, and gripping, The Inferno of Dante is an astonishing masterpiece that no listener can afford to miss. Robert Pinsky, the distinguished American poet, preserves the burning clarity and universal relevance of this 13th-century literary masterpiece in a triumphant new translation for our times. Line by line, canto by canto, Robert Pinksy affirms The Inferno as a powerful living classic for today’s listeners.
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Great content but...
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OK
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Dante's Divine Comedy is considered to be not only the most important epic poem in Italian literature, but also one of the greatest poems ever written. It consists of 100 cantos, and (after an introductory canto) they are divided into three sections. Each section is 33 cantos in length, and they describe how Dante and a guide travel through Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.
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Not for listening.
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Dante Alighieri was early in recognizing that our age has a problem. His hometown, Florence, was at the epicenter of the move from the medieval world to the modern. The Divine Comedy was born in a time of troubling transition, which is why it still speaks today. In this narrative retelling and guide, from the gates of hell, up the mountain of purgatory, to the empyrean of paradise, Mark Vernon offers a vivid introduction and interpretation of a book that, 700 years on, continues to open minds and change lives.
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One of the greatest works in literature, Dante's story-poem is an allegory that represents mankind as it exposes itself, by its merits or demerits, to the rewards or the punishments of justice. A single listen will reveal Dante's visual imagination and uncanny power to make the spiritual visible.
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Almost Divine
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Have you ever heard the sounds of Hell? Felt the darkness and the ice? Tasted the burnt air on your tongue? Dante’s Inferno will give you a flavor of the wretchedness of sin that you will never forget. The images and action that bring you down into the very center of judgment and consequence, into that eternal realm of woe, will stick to the ribcages of your mind, and change the way you see the world, the devil, and your own flesh.
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The Iliad of Homer
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For thousands of years, Homer's ancient epic poem the
Iliad has enchanted readers from around the world. When you join Professor Vandiver for this lecture series on the Iliad, you'll come to understand what has enthralled and gripped so many people. Her compelling 12-lecture look at this literary masterpiece -whether it's the work of many authors or the "vision" of a single blind poet - makes it vividly clear why, after almost 3,000 years, the
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"Abandon all hope you who enter here." ( "Lasciate ogne speranza voi ch’intrate.") Dante’s Hell is one of the most remarkable visions in Western literature. An allegory for his and future ages, it is, at the same time, an account of terrifying realism. Passing under a lintel emblazoned with these frightening words, the poet is led down into the depths by Virgil and shown those doomed to suffer eternal torment for vices exhibited and sins committed on earth.
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The Best Inferno So Far
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By: Dante Alighieri, and others
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The Inferno of Dante
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This critically acclaimed translation was awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry and the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award given by the Academy of American Poets. Well versed, rapid, and various in style, the Inferno is narrated by Pinsky and three other leading poets: Seamus Heaney, Frank Bidart, and Louise Glück.
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A great translation of the epic.
- By craig on 09-14-15
By: Dante Alighieri, and others
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Nostalgia
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- Unabridged
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Alone among the creatures of the world, man suffers a pang both bitter and sweet. It is an ache for the homecoming. The Greeks called it nostalgia. Post-modern man, homeless almost by definition, cannot understand nostalgia. If he is a progressive, dreaming of a utopia to come, he dismisses it contemptuously, eager to bury a past he despises. If he is a reactionary, he sentimentalizes it, dreaming of a lost golden age. In this profound reflection, Anthony Esolen explores the true meaning of nostalgia and its place in the human heart.
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Deep and thought provoking.
- By Holly Stockley on 04-24-19
By: Anthony Esolen
What listeners say about Dante's Inferno
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 05-22-21
THIS IS A LECTURER
I thought this was the actual book, WHO NAMES THE LECTURE AFTER THE BOOK AND THEN MAKE POEPLE PAY MONEY FOR IT? Who ever came up with that idea can give birth to a rotten tree
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14 people found this helpful
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- John
- 09-02-19
The Punishment is the Sin, Stripped of its Glitter
In his lectures on the Divine Comedy Professor Timothy Shutt treats the poem primarily in terms of literature and history. That makes sense, of course; as a secular teacher at a series of secular institutions, Shutt can but skirt the edges of theology. Professor Anthony Esolen works under no such proscriptions and, right at the beginning of these lectures, states the obvious: the Divine Comedy is deeply, inescapably theological.
So, for example, while Shutt stands flabbergasted at Dante’s presumption in counting himself among the greatest poets who ever lived (Canto 4), Esolen offers a theological insight. When Homer hails Virgil as greater than himself, then Virgil invites Dante into their charmed circle (implying that Dante is even greater than he is) this isn't chutzpah on Dante's part. What’s being ranked aren’t the poets themselves but their subject matter. The founding of Rome, Esolen points out, is a greater subject than the siege of Troy, while Dante's ultimate subject, the vision of God, is infinitely greater than the founding of Rome.
This isn’t to disparage Professor Shutt’s work; I’ve enjoyed his recordings for years and hope I will for years to come. Nor does Esolen completely ignore artistic merit or historical background (where Shutt cringes in politically correct discomfort at Dante's consignment of Muhammed to the ring of the Bringers of Discord, Esolen explains the Medieval belief that, denied a bishopric, Muhammed founded his own religion in revenge). It’s a matter of each teacher’s emphasis. Taken together, Esolen’s theological insights (like the one borrowed for my title) and Shutt’s literary and historical context give a more fully rounded understanding of a poem that, as Esolen says, is really about everything.
Of course, “everything” includes love, hate, sin, death, life, medieval theology and references to late 13th Century Florentine politics. One reason, no doubt, why Professor Esolen recommends reading the cantos discussed in each lecture before listening. It’s a practice I can’t recommend too strongly, either (I used Clive James' fine version, read by Edoadro Ballerini). Knowing you have your own personal Virgil to bridge the intellectual gaps between the medieval and modern mind makes those gaps easier to take in one’s stride. As he says in lecture 4, “Dante was not hampered by our limitations”.
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13 people found this helpful
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- J.C.
- 02-09-20
Esolen rules!
A detailed and exciting analysis of Dante, scholarly, but far from pedantic. I read each Canto once prior to each lecture, then another time after each lecture to great profit.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Kaydie
- 08-23-21
This is not the actual poem
This is some college lecture about the book. Not the actual script. Do not buy. Waste of money. Wish i could get a refund
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4 people found this helpful
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- Todd Hauter
- 03-15-20
A must have when reading Dante
This is an excellent companion to Dante. Professor Esolen is knowledgeable and a good speaker.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Rocco Pirraglia
- 02-20-23
Excellent Lecture on Inferno
This is not Dante’s text, nor a translation. It’s a very well done lecture on Inferno through the lens of Catholicism, which is the correct lens to view it from as it is the lens through which Dante wrote it. This acts as an excellent companion for Inferno. It breaks down the symbolism, the characters, the Italian politics, the pagan and Christian themes all sown throughout the poem. The cantos are read with great knowledge and gusto from the lecturer.
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- Nicholas Tompkins
- 11-18-20
Great Narration and Analysis!!!
I love this poem. If you want to learn more about this book this is the ideal purchase for you.
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- Curt
- 01-20-20
I can’t imagine a better commentary or commentator!
Wow, quite a spectacular commentary on Dante’s Inferno! Anthony Esolen is not only an excellent scholar but also an excellent presenter. I am looking forward to his commentary on Purgatorio and Paradiso.
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- Faith
- 09-07-19
This helps in understanding Dante's Inferno.
Dr. Esolen's lecture helps the listener to better understand the details of Dante's Inferno. Very interesting.
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- Joy
- 07-09-23
Bring it to Life
Dr. Esolen is knowledgeable, yet based on the audio sample, I was hoping that he would bring Dante and the Divine Comedy to life. Greatly disappointed. Focus is on material only -- not on today's audience and how to relate this classic to today's audience. Play to the audience first, and then explain and highlight this timeless poem to today's man.
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