ARTH 3300 - Dante and the Visual Arts

Goals: To familiarize students with one of the great works of Western culture, Dante’s Divine Comedy, and, of that work, to read its most well-known component, the Inferno. To explore the interaction of art and literature through study of artists’ interpretations of the Inferno from the Middle Ages through the 20th century. Arts studied include painting, sculpture, and book/manuscript illustration.

Content: Students will read all of Dante’s Inferno (which is the first of three parts of the Divine Comedy, the other two parts being Purgatorio and Paradiso) and will study visual imagery created as illustration of this work or as inspired by this work.

Taught: Alternate years, concurrently with ARTH 1300.

Prerequisites: ARTH 1200 and ARTH 1210, or permission of the instructor.

Credits: 4 credits