Simon Chater is a writer, editor and translator based near Buckfastleigh, in Devon. He is the founding director of Green Ink, a science communication company (www.greenink.co.uk). Simon has written and/or edited many publications, mostly on agriculture and natural resources in the developing world.
Among the carnal sinners in the second circle of hell, we meet Paolo and Francesca. Of all the stories in the Inferno, theirs is perhaps the one that most invites our empathy: which of us has not been where they are? Dante’s scene-setting is a powerful example of contrapasso – the idea that the punishment […]
No sooner are the poets through the gate than the full force of hell hits Dante: I so admire this passage! In a few deft strokes Dante evokes the overwhelming cacophony of sounds that is his first impression of hell. Sounds not sights, for he can see little in the dim light where no stars […]
Led by Virgil, Dante sets out on his journey. At the entrance to hell he sees these words inscribed over a dark gateway: The famous line here is the last, wryly quoted today in many a workplace and home. The absence of hope is the defining feature of hell, as anyone stuck in a dead-end […]
Reason, sweet reason! How we – or some of us, at least – long for you in the age of Brexit, Trumpism and other mass delusions. As in our time, so in Dante’s. At the end of my first tasting note we left Dante confused and terrified, alone in the “dark wood” of his erring […]
In the final canto of the Paradiso, Dante is given a moment of perfetto veder, “perfect sight” – of union with the divine, when the seer and the seen become one. As his poem builds to this sublime climax, its creator loses his battle with language, yet captures that loss with words of such surpassing […]
Local environmental charities are working to increase Devon’s tree populations. Simon Chater was delighted to take part. For nearly 40 years I’ve lived in an old farmhouse in one of the loveliest spots in the South West – the valley of the Holy Brook, a tributary of the Dart. A livestock farmer sold me the […]
There’s no original sin in Dante’s account of human spirituality. The soul is born of joy and seeks to return to a state of joy. In my first three tasting notes I’m going to skip about, dipping once only into each canticle – Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. Then, if you’d like more, you can come […]
Dante is at once the most influential and the most neglected of Europe’s poets. Since the early 14th century, when he wrote, he has inspired countless other writers in almost every European language, yet today he has few readers outside academia and Italy. In this series of commentaries written to mark the 700th anniversary of […]
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own. There are precious few upsides to Brexit, but here’s one. We’re coming out of the EU’s dysfunctional system for regulating genetically modified (GM) crops! What do we know? It’s a quarter of a century since the first GM crop, a tomato modified to prolong its […]
Anthony Mangnall M.P. House of Commons London SW1A 0AA 26 October 2020 Dear Mr Mangnall I’m writing this open letter to you in reply to yours of 27 July 2020, which reprimands me for calling Brexit out as a “resurgence of the disease of fascism”. Be in no doubt: that’s exactly what Brexit is. […]
“The evil that is in the world nearly always comes from ignorance.” This is a central message of Albert Camus’ La Peste. It’s also, to my mind, the message most relevant to our struggles against coronavirus and Brexit. La Peste is the story of a (fictional) outbreak of plague in the (real) city of Oran, […]
