130B: Dante’s Purgatorio and Paradiso

TT 9:30-11 | Instructor: Steven Botterill

Units: 4 Satisfies L&S Arts & Literature OR Philosophy and Values breadth requirement.

Course taught in English.

This close introductory reading of Dante’s Purgatorio and Paradiso (the second and third sections of the Divine Comedy) aims to guide readers through a complex and challenging poetic narrative, situate Dante and his work in their intellectual, historical, and cultural context, and discuss questions of ethics, aesthetics, interpretation, and critical practice raised by the enduringly provocative presence of this medieval masterpiece at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Previous acquaintance with the first section of Dante’s trilogy, Inferno, will be found useful but is not indispensable.

Course requirements: Students will write three short (2-3 pp.) response papers in the first half of the semester; thereafter, in consultation with the instructor, they will devise an individual project on which they will write a research paper. There will be no midterm or final exam.

Text: Dante Alighieri, The “Divine Comedy”, translated by Allen Mandelbaum (Everyman’s Library, ISBN 978-0679433132)

Prerequisites: None