Dante concludes for the seniors this week with a giant Dante Day celebration slated for Friday. The day promises to be an amazing amalgamation of food, dance, videos, games and artistic rendering -- all in the name and for the love of our favorite Italian writer, Dante. We are also blessed this week to have Dr. Bill Cook, a noted Medievalist from SUNY to pop in to all my senior classes and talk a bit about Dante. Dr. Cook will be wrapping up our study this Thursday, so it promises to be a terrific week.
Our travels around hell have finally led us to the base of the cone and to the frozen ninth layer, reserved for the traitors. After 34 cantos, the seniors all feel a bit of a let down when Dante and Virgil come face to face with Satan. Here in Dante's Inferno, Satan is the greatest sufferer and the greatest sinner. He is not the royal ruler of his underworld lair, as often depicted in movies.He represents all that treachery can, and his enormity and pain are so powerful that Dante and Virgil only observe him briefly before literally climbing down his torso to head toward a passage out. One of my observant seniors noticed this week that in the eighth and ninth layer, Virgil, aka Human Reason, seems to be much quieter than earlier in the journey. As we discussed the possible reasons for this, one offered the idea that as a teacher, he needs to step aside a bit and let Dante use what he has gleaned on the journey to work his way through these most terrible of layers. I added that perhaps Human Reason itself cannot altogether offer insight about treason; treachery to that extent seems to defy reason altogether.
Well we have certainly had a lot to ponder. As we end our visit in Hell, the seniors will move onto Herman Hesse's Siddhartha. Seems after a month of Inferno, we need the calm, cooling river of Hesse.
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