ITAL 282 - In and Out of Hell: Teachings for Today’s World in Dante’s Divine Comedy and Boccaccio’s Decameron

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

(Same as MRST 282) Today’s news media defines our times as an ‘unprecedented challenge’. Undoubtedly thecombination of a pandemic, pervasive social and political unrest, and environmental crisis present a serious challenge, but today’s challenge is hardly ‘unprecedented’. Both our planet and humankind have faced, and overcome, even more dramatic challenges in the past. In this course we look at two literary masterpieces: Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy and Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron. Written fifty years apart in a century that witnessed dramatic events like the Black Death, the Church’s Avignon Captivity, and Europe’s social and economic collapse, these works may offer valid teachings on how to cope with today’s challenges, both at the personal and social level. After an in-depth introduction to the time period and a detailed analysis of the nature and structure of the two works, we read selections of cantos from the Comedy and novellas from the Decameron that are particularly meaningful to our quest. We apply a wide range of strategies to experience, comprehend, interpret, and evaluate the chosen texts (i.e. progressive reading and imagery exercises). We emphasize inter-textuality to underline the authors’ different approach to similar issues, and the multiplicity of their teachings. In the last part of the semester, students conduct their own research on the works and present their results in oral and written form. The course is conducted in English. Eugenio Giusti.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS