Italian Studies at Notre Dame and the College of Arts and Letters’ William and Katherine Devers Program in Dante Studies will host “Dante Now!”—a series of public readings from The Divine Comedy. Readings will occur simultaneously at various locations around campus on November 2, beginning at 2 p.m.
The event is meant to bring the “vibrant immediacy” of The Divine Comedy to life for a modern audience. To best capture the music and rhythm of Dante’s poetry, the readings will be in the original Italian, but English translations will be provided to performers and spectators. Performance locations include:
• the Word of Life Mural (“Touchdown Jesus”) at Hesburgh Libraries
• the Clarke Memorial Fountain (“Stonehenge”)
• the stairs of the Main Building
• the Knute Rockne Memorial Building
• the stairs of Bond Hall
• the Sesquicentennial Common (between the Law School, the Fitzpatrick Hall of Engineering, and DeBartolo Hall),
• the Knute Rockne statue, North Tunnel of Notre Dame Stadium
• the Shaheen Mestrovic Memorial (west side of O’Shaughnessy Hall)
• the Hammes Notre Dame Bookstore, by the Mary and Elizabeth sculpture (“The Visitation”)
The readings will conclude at 3 p.m. when performers—and interested spectators—are invited to gather at the Grotto for a communal recitation of St. Bernard’s Prayer to the Virgin, which forms the conclusion of Dante’s trilogy.
Afterward, at 3:30 p.m., the Devers Program and Italian Studies at Notre Dame will host an illustrative lecture titled “What’s Wrong With This Picture? How to Read Dante’s Hell” in the Hesburgh Libraries Department of Special Collections.
Click here for more information about the performances and the lecture.
Sponsored by Italian Studies at Notre Dame and the College of Arts and Letters’ William and Katherine Devers Program in Dante Studies