Hellish Imaginations from Augustine to Dante

"Medieval literature and art abounds in descriptions of grotesque torments being meted out to the unhappy dead. But how can pain be experienced in the absence of the body? ... This book brings to life many of the intellectual clashes, beginning with Augustine's foundational yet troubling doctrines, proceeding to the problems caused by Aristotle's insistence that death kills off all sense and sensation, and culminating in a fresh reading of Dante's Purgatorio, Canto XXV." -- Back cover.