Where are we heading—heaven or hell? Poet Dante Alighieri explores just that in his epic poem “The Divine Comedy,” which he completed around 1321, the year that he died. Dante wrote 100 cantos (sections), averaging 142 lines, for his poem that charts the journey of the pilgrim Dante through Hell to Purgatory and Paradise. The…
England’s Epic Poet: James Sale and His New Work, ‘StairWell’
The Renaissance-poet Philip Sidney considered the epic or “heroical” genre to be the “most accomplished kind of poetry.” What could possibly substantiate such a claim? In his famous essay, “The Defense of Poesy,” he defined the epic hero as one who “stirs and instructs the mind” with moral doctrine, who “doth not only teach and move to…
The Force of a Thought: Rodin Brings the Poet Dante to Life in ‘The Thinker’
Few works of art are as known today as “The Thinker” by French sculptor Auguste Rodin. The monumental nature of this single monolithic figure seems to be all self-sufficient, capable of symbolizing the most sophisticated of human activity—thinking. It’s no wonder that this image, ever since its rise to popularity in 1903, has been most…
Reasons Why the Written Word Still Packs the Biggest Punch
Parents may be challenged by their child’s homework frustration—“Why do I have to do these writing assignments? I don’t like to write! I’ll never be a writer, so why do I need to learn this?” How can we answer that? Talking about examples of how writing has always helped us, both long ago and today,…
Dante’s Heavenly Legacy
Nearly 700 years ago, in September 1321, the Italian literary great Dante Alighieri died. Dante wrote poetry and important theoretical works on a wide range of topics, including moral philosophy and political thought. For his works, he drew inspiration from the ancient classics by writers such as Virgil and Cicero. In Florence, Dante sat on the Council of…
More Dante Now, Please! (Part 4): The Road of Repentance
This is the fourth and final article in this particular Dante series. We remember that we read Dante because he addresses the big questions of truth and reality, and we saw how in Hell the issue of free will is of paramount importance. Subsequently, we discovered that although Purgatory and Hell seem similar in that…
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