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Lecturae Dantis: Inferno Canto 2

 We continued with the reading of the Inferno  with Canto 2.  Today's reader was Prof. Brian Reynolds of the Fu Jen Catholic Univeristy of Taipei.   Salient points: There are two levels of allegory.  One is that which shows fiction that has truth to it.  Another is that which is used in scripture, which involves truth with further truth within it  (e.g., Moses literally did lead the Israelites from Egypt to the Promised Land, but at the same time, that points to a deeper meaning of our lives being a journey to the Promised Land.)  It is that second type of allegory that is involved in The Divine Comedy . In this Canto, we get a sense that Dante's journey is not just a personal journey; it is the journey of all of us. It is in this Canto that Dante realizes that he needs to rely on others to get out of the dark wood.  A theme is the need to balance recognizing one's talents and recognizing the need for others, especially the need for divi...
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Lecturae Dantis: Inferno Canto I

 I just attended the first session of Lecturae Dantis, a canto-by-canto reading with commentary of the entire Divine Comedy organized by the Literature Department of my alma mater, the University of Asia and the Pacific.  I intend to follow all the readings religiously. The Divine Comedy  is one of those works that reward re-reading.  Every time I re-read it, I always discover something new.  In this case, the re-reading was enhanced by the commentaries the reader, Dr. Paul Dumol, a medievalist.  I always found myself exclaiming, "Oo nga, ano!" to myself throughout the session. We started with the first canto today with Dante finding himself lost in a dark wood, his attempts to escape it being thwarted by the appearance of three beasts, and his encounter with Virgil who told him that his only way to escape the dark wood  was through another route:  the guided tour of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven.   Some take-aways from today's reading:...
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Welcome, Reader!

Those who know me know how much I dig Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy .  My love affair with Dante's fictional journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven began in my senior year in college, when I took a three-credit course on the Comedy.  I have been hooked on it since then; it has been one of my most re-read trilogies (next perhaps to J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings which, by the way, has some shared themes and motifs with the Comedy , but that is for another post). Reading the Comedy  is a life-changing experience which everyone should go through at least once in their lifetimes.  Like all great literature, the Comedy  has the power to transform its reader for the better -- if the reader lets it.   Unfortunately, many have the impression that the Comedy  is highfalutin or unreachable, and as a result, they miss out on the enriching experience of reading it.  It is true that reading the Comedy  can be challenging....
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