大象传媒

The mystery of what happens after we die has long been the subject of writers, artists and thinkers. Don Paterson writes that "Man is probably unique amongst the mammals in that he has conscious foreknowledge of his own death".

One of the most powerful cultural influences on how we think about this subject is the poetry of Dante, whose epic poem The Divine Comedy imagined Hell as a physical place of torments nicely matched to the sins of its inhabitants.

One of the most troubling ideas found in Dante's afterlife is Limbo, a place of nothingness at the very edge of Hell for the unbaptised. It is an idea that has had a devastating impact on parents of stillborn babies in Roman Catholic countries like Ireland, where thousands of infants and stillborn babies were not allowed to be buried in holy ground and parents were taught to believe their dead children now dwelt out of the sight of God. It wasn't until 2007 that the Roman Catholic church offered hope that God would indeed save these unbaptised babies. A documentary broadcast on Radio 4 around that time included the powerful stories of anguished parents and we hear some of them in this programme.

Despite the enduring popular ideas about Heaven and Hell, it is hard to find precise depictions in the Old and New Testament. Samira talks to Rabbi Jonathan Romain about Jewish ideas of Sheol.

There are poems and writing by Don Paterson and Charles Dickens, as well as versions of Dante by Clive James and John Agard and music by Monteverdi and the Unthanks, among others.

The readers are Peter Marinker and Emily Taaffe.

Producer: Natalie Steed
A Whistledown production for 大象传媒 Radio 4

The picture used for this programme shows Dante and his guide, Virgil, being rowed across the Styx (image courtesy of the British Library).