We begin our epic journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven, accompanied by Dante the poet, Dante the character created by the poet Dante, with Virgil our guide, and Beatrice our semi-divine benefactor. We spend most of our conversation today trying to orient ourselves in our strange new world. Why was Dante chosen by divine grace to be the one living soul to pass through Hell – and why is Virgil, of all the honored names of the pre-Christian past, his guide? Are the primary goals of this poem theological, aesthetic, ethical, or otherwise? Can such categories even be separated for a work like this, which must rank as the culminating artifact of the high middle-ages, the culminating artifact of European Christendom. But, given that, how do we understand the literalness of Hell as Dante depicts it? Are we intended to think of this as a real place, as real as Florence and Rome? Or more like an allegory or a poetic flight of imagination, or a mystical vision, or something else? Abandon all hope of firm conclusions or easy answers, ye who enter this podcast.