Dr. Stephen Ruzicka

Professor of History

Divine Comedy
by Dante Alighieri

I have read and taught the Divine Comedy many times, but it is always fresh and endlessly fascinating. For me it is the greatest imaginative achievement in literature. Dante integrates the philosophy, Christian theology, classical mythology, and an enormous cast of characters into a single compelling vision of cosmic order and meaning. And he does so in a verse form whose aba-bcb rhyme scheme (best captured in the Dorothy Sayers translation) propels the reader from stanza to stanza on the same journey to paradise that Dante himself takes in the work.