A BRIEF HISTORY OF HELL A Guided Tour of Literary Underworlds with Gary Lachman Saturday 16th October 2021 at 3:30 pm "Hell is a city much like London," the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley once opined. Shelley's comparison may be questioned - and what would he think today? - but his interest in the topography of that infernal place below was shared by some of the world's greatest literary figures. For centuries, poets, novelists, playwrights, philosophers and other creative souls have dared to depict what things are like in the pit of eternal damnation. For some it was a scene of perpetual torment, a region of pain, suffering, and unending remorse. For George Bernard Shaw it was a place where "one has nothing to do but amuse oneself" - a merry hell, perhaps? Poets, we are told, are of "the Devil's party," (as Blake claimed about Milton) so they should certainly know. Artists ranging from Giotto, Van Eyck, Bosch and Munch to Jake & Dinos Chapman have all portrayed their personal visions of the fiery abyss.
Gary Lachman Gary Lachman is the author of twenty-two books on a variety of subjects, from the history of esotericism to the influence of the occult on popular culture, mystical politics and writers and suicide. He writes for several journals in the UK, US and Europe and lectures widely on his work. A founding member of the rock group Blondie, in 2006 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Find out more at garylachman.co.uk Image credit - A section of Hieronymus Bosch's medeival masterpiece The Last Judgement. Public domain courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. |
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