SEMINAR PROFILE

H26 -
A Season in Hell: Reading Dante's Inferno

Dante's Inferno is a quintessentially medieval text that continues to fascinate contemporary readers. This two day seminar will explore the ways that Dante's poem remains meaningful in poetic, psychological, and moral terms. The seminar will offer a broad overview of the canticle and then concentrate on the close reading of selected cantos in which Dante dramatizes the tensions between classical and Christian culture and the conflict between sympathy and judgment implicit in the poem's narrative structure. We will query the relationship between divine justice and Dante's inventive versions of poetic justice, supplementing our reading with both medieval and contemporary visual representations of Dante's Hell.

Scholar:

Rachel Jacoff

Location:

Harvard Hillel

Dates:

1/8/2013, 1/15/2013

H26 -	A Season in Hell: Reading Dante's Inferno

	Dante's Inferno is a quintessentially medieval text that continues to fascinate contemporary readers. This two day seminar will explore the ways that Dante's poem remains meaningful in poetic, psychological, and moral terms. The seminar will offer a broad overview of the canticle and then concentrate on the close reading of selected cantos in which Dante dramatizes the tensions between classical and Christian culture and the conflict between sympathy and judgment implicit in the poem's narrative structure. We will query the relationship between divine justice and Dante's inventive versions of poetic justice, supplementing our reading with both medieval and contemporary visual representations of Dante's Hell.

		Scholar:	Rachel Jacoff
		Location:	Harvard Hillel
		Dates:	1/8/2013, 1/15/2013