Please join us for a 4-week online literature seminar during which Dr. Gerald Weiss will take us on a walk with Dante as he begins his journey in Hell, travels through Purgatory, and ascends to Paradise. Readings packet will be emailed in advance.

No charge for the program. This seminar is made possible with the support of the Literary Series in Memory of Amy Quigley. Advance registration required in order to receive the readings and the Zoom session invitation links. By registering for the first session you will automatically be registered for all four sessions. Please email Michael Bellacosa with any questions at mbellacosa@wiltonlibrary.org.

In this four-week seminar we will take an imaginary journey with Dante through the realms of the afterlife and meet just a few of the many extraordinary, historical and mythological characters he encounters along the way.  Because the poem is more than 14,000 lines, we will be taking short cuts and reading only selected Cantos or parts of Cantos so as to cover all three Canticles in abbreviated form.  Hopefully, this approach will still enable participants to experience some of Dante’s feelings and come to a better understanding of his poetry as well as the problems of life and some of the social and political events of his time that mirror some of those in our own country.  Dante wanted us not only to see and understand the truth he perceives and the obstacles in his way, but to experience and to feel it—to get inside the pilgrim and walk in his shoes.  The breakdown of the seminar involves four sessions:

• THE POET:  An introduction to Dante’s life and times, the structure of the Commedia and a reading and analysis of Canto I
• THE PUNISHMENT (Inferno): an encounter with several people (including Satan) on the way with a focus on the story of Francesca and Paolo (Canto V)
• THE PURGATION (Purgatorio): Meeting Cato, the guardian of the gate, as well as Statius and Beatrice. (Canto I and Canto XXVI)
• THE PROMISED (Paradiso): a focus on Beatrice and Dante’s other guides to the Beatific vision (Cantos I and XXXIII)

Dr. Gerald Weiss earned both a B.A and an M.A. in Classical Languages from St. Louis University. He pursued graduate studies in Philosophy and Theology at Innsbruck University (Austria) and later at the Gregorian University (Rome, Italy) where he received his Ph.D. While writing his dissertation he taught for a year at the Rome Center of Loyola University of Chicago. Upon returning to the United States he taught Philosophy/Theology/Religious Studies at Seton Hall, St. Louis and various other universities. He has had one book published and written numerous articles for educational, religious and spiritual periodicals and journals. Since retiring he has devoted most of his free time to painting and has exhibited some of his works at the Wilton Library.