Morning, Gloria, evening, Grace, America, it's Hughitt.

It's the last hour of the radio week.

It is the Hillsdale Dialogue with Dr. Larry Arne, president of Hiltale College.

And this week, his colleague, Dr. Stephen Smith, if you're just joining us or you're listening, not in real time, but on tape delay, the first hour of this conversation, which plays on Good Friday, just concluded with an introduction to

who Dante is and what the divine comedy is and its place in literature and the approach

in the general structure.

But in case you just did walk in, I'm going to ask Dr. Smith to quickly summarize where we

find Dante at the beginning of the inferno and the 100 canto

structure of the three parts of the divine comedy.

All right.

So we're dealing with one poem, the comedy, in three parts, Inferno, Purgatorioia,

Paradiso, 100 total cantos.

Nice digestible cantos, about four to five pages each.

At the beginning, he's lost in a dark wood.

Doesn't know how he got there.

He's at the point of death.

He's yielding to despair when the ghost of Virgil appears to help him.

And Virgil has been sent by Beatrice, the love of his life.

That's right.

Now, she sends him for an interesting reason.

She tells him Virgil, my friend, she's been dead for a while, he is at the point

of death.

...