Image: Charon ferries Dante and Virgil
Yates-Thompson Folio 6, illustrated edition of the Divine Comedy, courtesy of the British Library​

Going Through Hell

A Guide to Dante’s Inferno for the Intrepid Traveller

Saturday 25th July 2026
14:00–17:00 BST
The October Gallery, London

A talk by Robert-Louis Abrahamson

Description

This talk will take us through Dante’s twenty-one categories of ‘sin’, each representing a different way we break divine Unity and destroy Community, in the process also ruining our individual soul. The Inferno is well known for its vivid variety of ‘punishments’, which we can regard as external representations of the interior states of an ego-centred soul. Among other questions, we will ask:

When is love not enough?
What do you do when you meet your own anger?
Why do thieves have their identity stolen?
What is it like when Hell freezes over?

Robert-Louis Abrahamson, Emeritus Professor of the University of Maryland’s European Division, has given previous talks with the Beshara Trust on Edwin Muir, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Fables and Dante’s Vision of Diversity in Unity. He has been lecturing and leading seminars on Dante for many years, and has produced 102 podcast episodes on the Divine Comedy see https://rlabrahamson1.substack.com. He has contributed to several international conferences and podcast interviews on Dante. His new book, Going through Hell is the first of three volumes on the Divine Comedy; volumes on the Purgatorio and Paradiso are in preparation.

The October Gallery,
24 Old Gloucester Street
London
WC1N 3AL

Refreshments provided