To Hell and Back: Alison Cornish on the Divine Comedy
Written some 700 years ago, Dante’s Divine Comedy remains one of the greatest works of world literature. Religion, politics, history, love, war, money: it has it all. The three-book epic plumbs the depths of hell and reaches for the highest clouds of paradise, while always remaining grounded in the here and now. In an interview with The Octavian Report, Alison Cornish—who’s an NYU professor, president of the Dante Society of America, and author of the book Vernacular Translation in Dante’s Italy—explains why The Divine Comedy has stood the test of time, what makes it so influential, and why its politics resonate today. If you like the interview and are interested in more, you can subscribe to our weekly Substack, WHY THE CLASSICS?, by clicking here. And for more smart coverage of the arts, economics, and international affairs, check out our magazine, available online and in print.
Alison Cornish: I was an English major at Berkeley, and toward the end of my time there, I had to take a class in medieval literature. So I studied Beowulf with Allan Renoir, who was the son of the filmmaker [Jean Renoir] and grandson of the artist [Pierre August Renoir]. He said, “you should go to graduate school,” so I went to Cornell. And I had already started studying Italian and French, so I guess I came to it through language first.
