From the opening lines of his Divine Comedy—“Midway along the
journey of our life” —Dante half invites, half compels us as readers
to find ourselves in this quite literally other-worldly journey of the
imagination, that leads from the center of the earth up to the starry
spheres and beyond, out of space and time altogether. This will not
just be his story but ours as well, and the engagement he demands of
his readers exceeds that of most poets before or since. From the
dramatic realism of Hell to the imaginative artistry of Purgatory and
the intellectual light of Paradise, Dante’s voyage through the regions
of the afterlife is at the same time an interior journey. It is a
spiritual autobiography that spans, in T.S. Eliot’s words, “a complete
scale of the depths and heights of human emotion,” and searches into
the meaning of the human vocation.

Basing ourselves on a close reading of the text, we will engage its
paradoxes, delve into its multiple levels of meaning, and explore the
perennial questions it raises: what is justice and what does it mean
to be free? What is the nature of good and evil, of virtue and vice?
Of love, both sacred and profane? What is the purpose of art and
allegory, of beauty and the impulse for artistic creation? What
constitutes our identity, and to what extent do we form it, or are we
formed by the society that surrounds us? What is our potential for
good and evil, and for spiritual transformation? And above all, what
is happiness and where does our quest for it lead?

We will analyze Dante’s work as a synthesis of the intellectual,
spiritual and esthetic ideals of the European Middle Ages, and at the
same time as the original voice of a daring poet, writing from the
exile his uncompromising political ideas had provoked.

We will read the Divine Comedy in its entirety, as well as
Dante’s earlier work the New Life, a literary autobiography
that narrates his youthful encounter with love and is probably the
best introduction to the Comedy. Classes will be a combination
of lecture and lively discussions, based on a close reading of the
text. Supplemental critical essays will be available on the course
webpage. All readings in English.