One of the masterworks of Western civilization, Dante Alighieri’s Comedia is a dream poem that arcs upward from the horrors of Hell through the mysteries of Purgatory and on to the sublime joys of Paradise. But in America, at least, many readers never make it out of Hell. Perhaps they’re stranded there by translators who don’t go on to Purgatorio and Paradiso. Perhaps our society is more attuned to the visual splendors of Inferno than to the more abstract musings of the higher realms. Maybe we’re simply more comfortable in Hell than in Heaven.
You’ll have a chance to ask some distinguished minds those questions and more over the next few months when the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum presents, as part of its Centennial celebrations, " Dante at the Gardner, " a series of five Wednesday evenings. The connection between Signor Alighieri and Mrs. Stewart Gardner isn’t hard to locate: she was a member of the Dante Society of Boston who attended Dante lectures at Harvard by Charles Eliot Norton, and her collection includes two rare copies of the Comedia.
Each evening will feature a distinguished Dante scholar talking about a particular canto (they’ll all be using the Allen Mandelbaum translation, a good choice). Actors from Wesleyan University’s graduate theater program (where Ron Jenkins, of Dario Fo and ART fame, is chairman, so that’s another good choice) will present a dramatic staging of the canto, and then there’ll be an extended group-discussion period (this is an interactive event; you’ll receive handouts, but as far as we know you won’t have any homework). The proceedings will conclude Saturday April 26 with an all-day " Dante Fest " in which actors will perform passages from Inferno and draw " thematic connections between the poem and the museum’s collection. "
The series kicks off this Wednesday, February 12, with Harvard University’s Lino Pertile expounding on Canto I, in which, midway through his course of life, the poet finds himself lost in the fabled dark wood and confronted by three beasts. It’s clear that the lioness, the leopard, and the wolf are allegorical, but just what they stand for is a matter of Dantean dispute and sure to be addressed by Professor Pertile. On February 26, Wellesley’s Rachel Jacoff weighs in on Canto V and in particular on famous lover Francesca da Rimini, whose adultery with Paolo Malatesta led to Dante’s placing the pair among the eternally buffeted lustful — but was that his private opinion as well? On March 5, Boston University’s Dennis Costa guides us through the labyrinth of Florentine politics and Dante’s part in it; the focus will be Canto X and warlord Farinata degli Uberti. On March 26, Boston University’s Peter Hawkins will take us down to the Seventh Circle, focusing on the sodomites of Canto XV and in particular Brunetto Latini, one of Dante’s old teachers. On April 26, we’ll descend to the Eighth Circle with Yale University’s Giuseppe Mazzotta, and we’ll learn why Greek hero Ulysses makes a surprise appearance among the traitors of Canto XXVI. New York University’s John Freccero, who wrote the foreword to the Robert Pinsky Inferno, will wrap it up at the " Dante Fest " by discussing Canto XXXIII and Count Ugolino, who did or didn’t eat his children after they had starved to death — another controversial point of interpretation, and sure to be a hot topic.
The five evenings of " Dante at the Gardner " will take place February 12 and 26, March 5 and 26, and April 9 at 6:30 p.m. at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 280 the Fenway. These programs are free, but pre-registration is suggested; call (617) 278-5102 and leave your name, address, phone, and e-mail. The concluding " Dante Fest " will take place April 26 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
