The Divine Comedy: Dante’s Spiritual Journey with Mark Vernon (9 Session Course)
The journey begins when Dante wakes up in a dark wood. The air tastes bitter; he grows fearful, but his crisis is a turning point. His situation parallels our own. We face a spiritual crisis quite as profound as his own though, as Dante learns, there is no real development of spiritual sight without one. Ascent and descent are intimately related and Dante can help us discover how to navigate them both.
We will follow the translation by Mark Musa, published in the Penguin Classics edition, and will look at images by Blake, Botticelli, Doré and others.
The course will presume no former knowledge of The Divine Comedy, but it will also be valuable to those who have read the text before. The Divine Comedy is a spiritual masterpiece and invariably yields more when read again.
Dr Mark Vernon is a writer, psychotherapist and Associate with Perspectiva. His work has appeared in The Guardian, Aeon, Philosophy Now and The Church Times. He regularly contributes to programmes on the BBC and posts blogs, podcasts and YouTubes online. For more see www.markvernon.com
This is a 9-session weekly online course (using Zoom)
Course Dates
Tuesday, 2nd February 2021
Tuesday, 9th February 2021
Tuesday, 16th February 2021
Tuesday, 23rd February 2021
Tuesday, 2nd March 2021
Tuesday, 9th March 2021
Tuesday, 16th March 2021
Tuesday, 23rd March 2021
Tuesday, 30th March 2021
Tickets
£90 for an invitation on Zoom