History of Dante
Permalink for this paragraph 0 Currently, I am taking the class offered about Dante and the Divine Comedy and I am finally going to talk about it.
Permalink for this paragraph 0 We just wrapped up The Inferno and have just started Purgatorio. While reading, we would often to stop to talk about what was going on in Europe and Italy during Dante’s life, specifically the fight between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. We’ve also learned about the Italian language (the original language of The Divine Comedy), history of Dante and all surrounding events of the time, and, most recently, astronomy. Being exposed to all of these different elements expands a reader’s understanding of the literature written by Dante. So much meaning would be lost without knowing the history and context.
Permalink for this paragraph 0 Knowing the history of Dante’s life makes the reading easier to understand and broadens the understanding of the material. Most of the people Dante meets in The Inferno would not be significant to us as readers, but were certainly important to Dante at the time he wrote the work, which was after he was exiled. The acknowledgement of when Dante wrote this piece also sheds light on how he wants the reader to interpret and take from the reading.
Permalink for this paragraph 2 It almost seems like the class is just as a much a History class as an English class, apart from the fact we close read every passage we come across. But, knowing the history does seem to make the close reading go more smoothly, despite the amount of information needed in order to understand the reading.
I find the class rather entertaining, especially the critical thinking that Professor Westergan brings to the table. Today, we began to meet with him in his office to recite lines of Dante’s text in Italian. Slowly and phonetically we worked through each word to understand its association with the story and then unpack it into more conceptual notions. I love how every word that Dante writes can be unpacked to see a larger and more significant meaning.
Cory, I completely agree! I wish we had 5 times as much time to talk about everything we talk about! It’s hard to get into the deeper meaning of all the details when trying to get through the whole Comedy in one semester. I also wish I had read the Comedy before this class so that I could be on my second read through. Just going back over passages with Professor Westergan yesterday, I noted similarities and commonalities between passages throughout the book that I didn’t notice before.