I am a Protestant believer and after reading three different translations of The Divine Comedy (including Professor Esolen’s), I was having an especially difficult time understanding and sympathizing with Dante’s Purgatorio. How should I approach this poem about existence in a place many Protestants believe is a mistake in theology? Professor Esolen’s lectures helped tremendously.
His lectures skillfully integrate literary explication and analysis, theology, history, biography, philosophy, cultural criticism, and personal observations and insights. And he does this smoothly, clearly, and enthusiastically (I would LOVE to take his classes; these lectures, I suppose are the next best thing). You might expect this breadth of knowledge and subtle understanding from someone who has translated the Comedy, but that he can lecture about the poem so gracefully, earnestly and persuasively is amazing (think about the lectures you might have had to sit through in your college experience).
The lectures were especially valuable because Professor Esolen is able to explain how to understand Dante’s spiritual journey in the light of Roman Catholic beliefs and showed me the faultiness of some ideas I had about them. But even if you have no interest in religion, Professor Esolen’s lectures will help you understand the people, places, events, history and ideas in the Comedy and how they weave together in this great work.
The day I finished listening to the lectures on Purgatory (I went through them in two days and KNOW I will be listening to them several times over), I ordered the lectures on Inferno and Paradise.