Approaches to Teaching Dante's Divine Comedy

Download or read book Approaches to Teaching Dante's Divine Comedy written by Christopher Kleinhenz and published by Modern Language Association. This book was released on 2020-02-01 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dante's Divine Comedy can compel and shock readers: it combines intense emotion and psychological insight with medieval theology and philosophy. This volume will help instructors lead their students through the many dimensions--historical, literary, religious, and ethical--that make the work so rewarding and enduringly relevant yet so difficult. Part 1, "Materials," gives instructors an overview of the important scholarship on the Divine Comedy. The essays of part 2, "Approaches," describe ways to teach the work in the light of its contemporary culture and ours. Various teaching situations (a first-year seminar, a creative writing class, high school, a prison) are considered, and the many available translations are discussed.