After Dante passes the last ledge in Purgatory and braves the flames that he compares to molten glass in temperature, the sun sets and he can not go further. Even though he is now at the top of Mount Purgatory the rule that no progress is made in the dark remains. He lies down on [...]
Category: Dante
How many popes did you say?
One reason that I love reading about Dante, beyond reading his Divine Comedy, is that the early 1300s were a tumultuous time. It helps to keep our modern troubles in perspective. The Church went through 14 popes in Dante's fifty-six year lifespan. Three of those popes served for less than a year. For comparison, there [...]
Reading Dante
"The ideal way of reading The Divine Comedy would be to start at the first line and go straight through to the end, surrendering to the vigour of the story-telling and the swift movement of the verse, and not bothering about any historical allusions or theological explanations which do not occur in the text itself." [...]
Longfellow Poems 5 & 6
Here are the last two of Longfellow's six sonnets about Dante. Remember, Longfellow wasn't Catholic, he was a Unitarian. Then read Sonnet V right to its lovely end. Sonnet VI might be pointing to Italian history of the 1800's but I don't know for sure. I do know that there is lots of commentary about [...]
Longfellow: Dante sonnets 3 & 4
Longfellow was not Catholic. I don't know how he felt about Catholicism but his translation of Dante, and these sonnets, amazing meditations on confession, are evidence of a sympathy at least. He was friends with Nathaniel Hawthorne whose daughter Rose became a Catholic nun. She is currently listed as a Servant of God. He also [...]
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