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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Medieval and modern machines
Having posted about the book Medieval Machines (by Jean Gimpel) on December 27, I found The Chip by T. J. Reid. The chip is the microchip inside modern machines of every kind. Reid wrote about the chip because he thought that the people who invented it ought to be as well known as Henry Ford [...]
Saint Ephrem and Dante
The Harp of the Holy Spirit In the course of trying to remember a quote from Saint Ephrem (or Ephraim or Ephraem) that I read twenty years ago I surfed a lot of sites about Saint Ephrem. Top quote about him? "the greatest poet of the patristic age ... perhaps, the only theologian-poet to rank [...]
Dante and the Annunciation again
Here is Saint Bernard encouraging Dante to look at Mary, the Queen of Heaven. Look now into the face that unto Christ Hath most resemblance; for its brightness only Is able to prepare thee to see Christ.” On her did I behold so great a gladness Rain down, borne onward in the holy minds Created through that altitude to [...]
My new obsession
For the last year I have been writing a book about Dante and the Divine Comedy. I am not an expert and that is the point of the book. I tried to read the Divine Comedy many years ago and got stuck. This time around I kept working on it until I understood how to [...]
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