“At the mid-point of the path through life, I found
Myself lost in a wood so dark, the way
Ahead was blotted out.”- Dante Alighieri
And so would begin one of the best known epic poems ever written, Dante Alighieri’s The Divine
Comedy. It had been years since I read extended excerpts assigned to us by Mrs. Holthaus in our 11th grade Humanities class. The poem is broken down into three sections, Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), Paradiso (Heaven). Each section is further divided into thirty-four, thirty-three and thirty-three cantos (literally, Latin for “song”) respectively. Mrs. Holthaus was a smart teacher. When assigning a 14th century Italian epic to a rambunctious, inattentive class, she went straight to hell. Literally. Once we found ourselves oriented around the strangely named Italian poet, Dante, and his wise Roman poet guide, Virgil, we were mesmerized by the Horrors of Hell. With the damned plagued by wasps and maggots, lust-wracked souls violently blowing in the wind, violent sinners submerged in a boiling river of fire and blood, and traitors encased in ice in the deepest pit of hell, we were hooked.
Comedy. It had been years since I read extended excerpts assigned to us by Mrs. Holthaus in our 11th grade Humanities class. The poem is broken down into three sections, Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), Paradiso (Heaven). Each section is further divided into thirty-four, thirty-three and thirty-three cantos (literally, Latin for “song”) respectively. Mrs. Holthaus was a smart teacher. When assigning a 14th century Italian epic to a rambunctious, inattentive class, she went straight to hell. Literally. Once we found ourselves oriented around the strangely named Italian poet, Dante, and his wise Roman poet guide, Virgil, we were mesmerized by the Horrors of Hell. With the damned plagued by wasps and maggots, lust-wracked souls violently blowing in the wind, violent sinners submerged in a boiling river of fire and blood, and traitors encased in ice in the deepest pit of hell, we were hooked.I urge you to read the whole thing.
I'm privileged to be Mr. Worner's Facebook friend, privileged because occasionally showing up in my feed are pearls like this one from Mr. Worner he put up last night:
"A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Good stuff. Necessary stuff.
Carry on.
