A group of young intellectuals partake in playful rounds of academic sparring. Between Dante discussion groups and solitary linguistic exercises, Cal engages his friends in a series of discursive debates that, while reaching far and wide across history, eventually lead to more personal concerns.

Ted Fendt’s love for the filmmaking duo Straub-Huillet finds its richest realization in this playful ode to language, theology, and Dante’s Divine Comedy. As academic jousting sessions give way to interpersonal micro-dramas, Classical Period wryly interrogates the constitution of the scholastic ego.