LATIN 6214

The Commedia and the Classics: Antiquity Through the Eyes of Dante

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2021-2022.

Reading the entire Divine Comedy, we will pay particular attention to how Dante adopts and adapts ancient/classical authors, characters, and stories into his extraordinary tale of the afterlife. We will explore the unique ways in which he intertwines history and myth, tradition and novelty, Christianity and paganism, faith and science, and other seemingly incompatible fields of human knowledge and ingenuity. Our discussions will focus on primary texts, so students should ideally have a foundation in both Italian and Latin.

When Offered Spring.

Prerequisites/Corequisites Prerequisite: two semesters of 3000-level Latin. Students should have a solid grasp of Latin and a working knowledge of Italian. 

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