By Nora Hamerman
Special to the Herald
(From the issue of 11/11/04)

A daylong seminar in Philadelphia on Dante Alighieri’s epic poem about the journey of the soul gave a boost to the program of "re-evangelizing culture" set forth by Pope John Paul II as the task of the new millennium.

An audience of teachers, students, retirees, parents and others met at the International Institute for Culture at Ivy Hall mansion in the Historic Overbrook Farms section of Philadelphia on Oct. 23 to learn about "The Divine Comedy" from historian William Cook and literature professor Ronald Herzman, who quipped that they have become "Have Dante, Will Travel" since they began to teach the poem together 30 years ago.

The two professors at State University of New York-Geneseo have taught the poem not only to undergraduates, but also to groups ranging from brothers in a Trappist monastery, to prisoners in the maximum security prison in Attica, N.Y.

Cook and Hertzman cover the poem from many standpoints, but their emphasis is on the moral lessons of the imaginary journey of Dante (1265-1321). Emulating the Confessions of St. Augustine, Dante made himself the hero of his own poem, thus creating two "Dantes": the pilgrim on a journey from sin and error to freedom and wisdom, and the poet telling the story.

"The Divine Comedy," set in 1300, is divided into three canticles: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise. The pilgrim Dante is guided through these three domains of the afterlife in order to discover the truth about himself and his world. Each canticle consists of 33 cantos. Only in the end, when he contemplates the vision of God in Paradise, is the pilgrim united with the poet.

Many of the enthusiastic listeners "virtually" knew the two professors through their recorded classes on Dante, St. Francis and St. Augustine, available from The Teaching Company’s series of noncredit college courses.

Cook and Herzman regaled the Philadelphia audience with their experience of teaching "The Divine Comedy" to prisoners, many of them convicted murderers, at Attica in 1980. In an especially moving episode, one prisoner told Herzman, "When I read this poem, I feel like I am out of here." They reported that the inmates responded most to the Purgatory canticle, due to its theme of how to achieve moral improvement (hell being already too familiar). Both the prisoners and the monks, they said, were intensely concerned with knowing whether Dante himself was a moral person — an issue that rarely arises with college students.

Professors Herzman and Cook revealed that Dante, in writing his "Divine Comedy," was not just using the Latin epic The Aeneid as a model, but also boldly imitating the Holy Bible. Like the Bible, which was understood in the Middle Ages at four levels — the literal, the allegorical, as prophecy and as a guide to morality — Dante intended his poem to be read at four levels. Also like the Bible, they pointed out, the poem starts at the beginning (the outset of Dante’s journey in the poem, God’s creation of the world in Genesis) and ends at the end of time (the beatific vision in the poem, and the Apocalypse in the Bible).

Dante revisits many issues from a higher standpoint at each of the three levels, which is why one should not quit reading after the Inferno. Taking the case of politics treated in each Canto 6, they showed the poet widening his view from the local, to the national, to the global as he journeys from Inferno to Purgatory to Paradise and learns the urgency of overcoming partisan division to achieve the common good.

In the last session, the professors presented Dante’s vibrant attack on papal corruption in Canto 19 of Inferno, dismissing as absurd any allegations that Dante was "anti-papal" or a crypto-Protestant. Rather, Dante was deeply reverent toward the office of the pope and believed that he would help save the Church by denouncing greedy leaders.

The Institute for International Culture (IIC) was started in 1989 in response to the Holy Father’s call for the re-evangelization of culture. The IIC is engaged in international conferences, language and cultural programs, lectures series, educational seminars, art exhibits and musical performances, which reflect the rich cultural heritage of the Catholic Church, and which may serve to bring people to the person of Jesus Christ. This fall’s series is devoted to Italy.

For information on upcoming events go to www.iiculture.org.