One of the greatest literary achievements of all time, Dante’s Divine Comedy, is great in no small part because of its ability to touch and speak to everyday people in their ordinary lives. Dante combines theology, politics, philosophy, astronomy, ethics, passion, sin, desire, hope, and everything else that goes into our human world, and re-presents the whole thing to us as a journey that is at once everyday and extraordinary. A “public intellectual” has recently written that Dante saved his life. The Divine Comedy has that kind of power.
Over six monthly sessions, beginning July 21 at 6:15pm, we will read and discuss this magnificent poem. Our focus will not be scholarly or antiquarian. We are not much interested in the politics of 13th and 14th century Florence. We will read Dante directly and expect his Comedy to speak to us.
