12 Reasons to Stop What You Are Doing and Pick up Dante

As long time readers know, my blogging has been less than regular over the last year (all the more reason to sign up for my email list) due to the class I've been developing and teaching on Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. The class aims at bringing Catholics closer to their Faith and to Jesus through reading the greatest poem in Christendom.

If you haven't had the chance to read Dante recently and need a little extra motivation, here are 12 reasons to immediately put on hold whatever you are currently reading and pick up a copy of La Commedia. Feel free to share these far and wide!

Many of you might remember the series of posts I did awhile back entitled "Blogging through Hell" which brought us most of the way through the Inferno. I point you back to those if you haven't read them, but with the caution to not make a common "rookie mistake" when approaching the Poem; don't stop with Inferno. Dante's journey through the afterlife isn't one of Hellish gloom ending in a vision of Satan chewing on sinners. Rather, The Comedy is the story of freedom from sin to behold the very Face of God. IOW, finish the whole poem!

I'll also link to a post on The Three Advents of Christ in Dante and an older post encouraging a reader to take up the Poem.

If you don't have a copy of Dante's Comedy at hand I suggest Mark Musa's translation as the best for a beginner. He has a three volume set (with many helpful notes) and a one volume stand alone, titled The Portable Dante, (which has less, but still a good number of notes and contains Dante's second most famous work the Vita Nuova in addition to the entire Comedy.) 

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