Christian History articles from May 2001

Christian History archives from May 2001

Did You Know?(Brief Article)(Critical Essay)
May 1, 2001... What a famous painting suggests about Dante's life, legend, and legacy. Big Man in the Cosmos A giant in the world of which he wrote, laurel-crowned Dante stands holding his Divine Comedy open to the first lines: "Midway this way of...

HOW NOT TO READ DANTE.(Brief Article)(Critical Essay)
May 1, 2001... American literary education absolutely mangles the Divine Comedy. First, most anthologies print big hunks of Inferno and then abruptly cut the poem off or zoom straight to the end of Paradiso. This treatment suggests that Dante s journey...

FROM THE READERS.
May 1, 2001... Church split confusion I enjoyed most of issue 69 but was extremely disappointed with Mr. Oden's response to what caused the splits in the U. S. Methodist movement ("Weeds in the Garden," page 44). He makes it sound like every split was...

Divine Imagination.(Brief Article)(Critical Essay)
May 1, 2001... By describing a pilgrimage through the realms of death, Dante shares his vision of how Christians should live. The chief imagination of Christendom, Dante Alighieri, so utterly found himself That he has made that hollow face of his More...

"I Still Don't Know How He Does It".(Brief Article)(Critical Essay)
May 1, 2001... Dorothy Sayers discovers Dante. In 1944 British writer Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957), already famous as the author of Lord Peter Wimsey detective novels, holed up in an air raid shelter with Dante's Divine Comedy. She finished Inferno--in...

A Poet Without Honor.(The Glory of the Lord, Vol. III: Studies in Theological Style: Lay Studies excerpted)(Critical Essay)(Excerpt)
May 1, 2001... Banished from his hometown, Dante became lonely, bitter, and inspired. Shortly before giving birth in 1265, Dante's mother had a vision. According to fourteenth-century chronicler Giovanni Boccaccio: "The gentle lady thought in her...

Dante's Turbulent World.(Brief Article)(Critical Essay)
May 1, 2001... DANTE ALIGHIERI < 1265 Dante born, possibly May 29 1274 First meets and falls in love with Beatrice Portinari 1283 Soon after his father's death, Dante marries Gemma Donati, with whom he has three or four children 1289...

The Root of All Kinds of Evil.(Brief Article)(Critical Essay)
May 1, 2001... The Inferno is crammed with greedy Florentines receiving their due. Dante proclaims in De Monarchia, "Greed is the extreme opposite of justice, as Aristotle says in the fifth book of his Nicomachean Ethics. Take away greed completely and...

The Pilgrim Way.(Brief Article)(Critical Essay)
May 1, 2001... The dream of reaching heaven by visiting holy sites inspired millions of medieval Christians--including Dante. "How well it is for the Christian soul to behold the city which is like a heaven on earth, full of the sacred bones and relics...

Walk of Fame.(Critical Essay)
May 1, 2001... Star sightings in the Comedy highlight Dante's religious and political views. Boniface VIII (Benedict Gaetani) 1235-1303 Power-grabbing pope Benedict Gaetani would be bullied by no one. Accusing professors at the University of Paris...

Goodness, Gracious(ness), Great Balls of Fire.(Critical Essay)
May 1, 2001... Visions of eternity just aren't what they used to be. The modern image of heaven--clouds, harps, and a perpetual Sunday service--is hardly inspiring. Even hell sounds like an improvement. It may be fiery and dark, but interesting people...

WHAT ABOUT PURGATORY?(Brief Article)(Critical Essay)
May 1, 2001... The doctrinal grounding of Dante's mysterious mountain. Dante was the first writer to draw an elaborate map of Mount Purgatory, but he did not invent it. The idea of a place between death and heaven, as well as the practice of praying for...

Classics & Common Memory.(Brief Article)(Interview)
May 1, 2001... Why Dante's medieval masterwork continues to thrive in translation. A conversation with ROBERT PINSKY With 1994's The Inferno of Dante (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux),, Robert Pinsky, America s poet laureate from 1997 to 2000, joined...

DANTE AND THE DIVINE COMEDY.(Brief Article)(Critical Essay)
May 1, 2001... In a 1993 lecture on the authenticity of Dante's letter to Can Grande della Scala (see page 14), Princeton Danteist Robert Hollander noted, "As far as Dante studies are concerned, a debated issue that has only a 174-year history is,...