Dante in the Modern Imagination

Dante's Divine Comedy and its grip on the 20th-century imagination. How is Dante co-opted by modern literary tradition? To what extent is Dante a poet of modernity? Emphasis is first on Dante's texts, then on modern literary reinterpretations of them. Authors include Dante, Cavalcanti, Levi, Pound, Eliot, Beckett, Birk and Sanders. Course in English with optional discussion section in Italian.