Reflecting on Dante's Inspired Poetry for his Septicentennial

Join us in reflecting on The Divine Comedy and La Vita Nuova by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321).

Starting in January of this year, some of us have read Dante's La Vita Nuova and his Comedìa (including its three most famous canticles: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso).

This is the final installation of our commemorative reading of two most accomplished works of Dante - La Vita Nuova and the Divine Comedy. Now it is time to look back and reflect on everything that we read and studied together.

For those of you joining us in the reading, you may read or listen to any translation you want. Here are two free translations available as text or audio books:
● Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1867): a very faithful translation:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Divine_Comedy_(Longfellow_1867)
LibriVox audio recording: https://librivox.org/the-new-life-la-vita-nuova-by-dante-alighieri/
● Courtney Langdon (1918): in blank verse:
https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/alighieri-the-divine-comedy-in-3-vols-langdon-trans
LibvriVox audio recording: https://librivox.org/the-divine-comedy-version-2-dramatic-reading-by-dante-alighieri/
● Here is a more modern translation from the Princeton Dante Project (Robert and Jean Hollander, 2000-2007): https://dante.princeton.edu/pdp/

Event Format:

1. Introduction to the material by Phil & Doug
2. Those who have read the two books get to share their reflections
3. Breakout rooms with 6-8 people each
4. Takeaways and go around: Everybody can comment
5. General discussion

Schedule:
6 Jan: Celebrate 700 Years of Dante
7 Feb: the Vita Nuova
7 Mar: Inferno 1-11
4 Apr: Inferno 12-22
2 May: Inferno 23-34
6 Jun: Purgatorio 1-11
11 Jul: Purgatorio 12-22
8 Aug: Purgatorio 23-33
12 Sep: Paradiso 1-11
10 Oct: Paradiso 12-22
7 Nov: Paradiso 22-33
5 Dec: Reflecting on Dante's Inspired Poetry for his Septicentennial

Watch videos of our past Dante events at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkCiNL_gZp2d4LDzThvjh-6DctJ0xGZGA

This 19 minute video introduction to Dante by Giuseppe Mazzotta is very good: http://y2u.be/679FGDpZBew

CJ Fearnley's "Reading Dante in 2021" page
https://www.cjfearnley.com/Dante2021.html

52 Living Ideas will record this event and post it to YouTube. Feel free to keep your video on or off as you prefer.