For those looking for detailed information on The Divine Comedy Study, scroll down 2 posts.
1. If you won't be able to make the first session on Thursday, May 19, we will offer a make-up session on Monday, May 23. Don't count on us doing this all the time, but if there's ever a time when most of you can't make it, we should be able to use Guadalupe Hall on Mondays. (We chose not to have the classes on Mondays this time around because Mark usually has to work late on Mondays. Thursdays are normally less busy.)
2. If you don't have Anthony Esolen's translation of Inferno* yet, we suggest you read one of the public domain versions that are available online. I was just now able to contact Professor Esolen to ask which he would recommend. Understandably, he doesn't think much of any of them, but says the Longfellow version is probably the best of the not-so-good. Check out this link which gives you various ways to view it. However, this link gives you a much easier-to-read online version. Click "Edition" at the top left and choose "Longfellow" which is the 4th choice down.
3. A note to students of our past studies: we want to give you a head's up that this is going to be quite a bit different than our other studies. Honestly, I rarely did the reading we were supposed to do before class (of course Mark did), but I got along all right following Jeff Cavins or Tim Gray. But this is more like a college course where you'll want to put the work in and be prepared ahead of time. Professor Esolen is great and very down-to-earth, and you can tell he knows Italian like a guy-on-the-street Italian (which are exactly the kind of people for whom Dante wrote The Divine Comedy)--but he's only going to cover the highlights of the cantos, not go over them word-for-word like some of our Bible studies.
I know we as a society have become quite unused to reading poetry, but just try your best to get through the assigned reading (cantos 1-8 for the first two combined lessons), and then you'll understand much more when you watch the DVDs. If you don't do the reading, you'll get an idea of what's going on, but you'll only get about 20% of the full content.
Once again, we would REALLY like to hear from you if you plan to attend. Don't need to hear from you if you are not coming.
--Celine
*Mark brought to my attention that all 3 books are not only available on Amazon but also at EWTN Religious Catalogue.
