La vignetta di Giannelli, Corriere della Sera (16 gennaio 2023)
Contributed by Paolo Valisa
“Beauty awakens the soul to act,” a letter to an editor (Chico, CA)
“I love this Dante Alighieri quote: ‘Beauty awakens the soul to act.’
“A few months ago, a friend of the Jesus Center offered a gift of a person, Shannon McConney to use her creative gifts to complete the beauty part of the Jesus Center space. I realized quickly that Shannon was not merely a decorator, but an artist so I introduced her to my good friend, Jess Mercer (known for her work in therapeutic arts and installations up on the Ridge). Well, magic quickly followed.
“Together they have designed, created, crafted, and installed an interactive art piece in our women’s multipurpose room where we hold most of our classes for the entire shelter population. When someone comes into our space, we want them to experience something other than rules, walls, doors, windows, and a safe place to store their things.
“Those are all great, but what is emerging here on Fair Street is art, words, color, texture, interactive elements that will awaken together with the handmade quilts, warm welcome, beautiful meals a human to act on their own behalf to find a pathway to their best life. This wall of 400 tiny houses will serve to awaken the imagination of those who may still be stuck in the darkness that comes when all hope is lost. As they choose to write their name and put it on one of the little houses, they are allowing themselves to dream of a life blessed by God and full of goodness and beauty.” –Laura Cootsona, Letter to the Editor, Chico Enterprise-Record, December 11, 2021
Max Hastings, Editor: An Inside Story of Newspapers (2003)
“We’re taking part in a divine comedy and we should realise that the play is always a comedy, in that we’re all ultimately ridiculous.” —Max Hastings, Editor: An Inside Story of Newspapers
Read more about Max Hastings’s memoir, covering his editorship of The Telegraph from 1985 to 2002, in The Guardian (“The view from Hastings,” October 12, 2002).
Divinity and damnation — why Dante still matters Article, Financial Times (2021)
“‘Onorate l’altissimo poeta!’ — ‘Honour the supreme poet!’ In Dante’s Divine Comedy, these words are said of Virgil, Dante’s guide through Hell and Purgatory. Now, 700 years after Dante’s death on September 14, 1321, it seems more right than ever to apply the words to Dante himself.
“Dante’s reputation has never stood higher. He has been revered by an extraordinary number of the greatest poets and writers of the past hundred years — Eliot, Pound, Joyce, Beckett, Borges, Montale, and the great Armenian poet Yeghishe Charents, to name only a few.” [. . .] –Robert Chandler, Financial Times, September 28, 2021 (retrieved March 30, 2022)
Chandler’s article, published originally in the British newspaper Financial Times, goes on to review three Dante-related books: Dante by Alessandro Barbero, a translation of Purgatorio by D.M. Black, and Visions of Heaven by Martin Kemp. View our posts for each of these by clicking their respective links. The full text of the article is available here.
NY Times Review: Dante’s Inferno Play, adapted/directed by Robert Scalan (1998)
“Dante’s Inferno, a highly condensed and remarkably theatrical staged version of the 14th-century epic that takes Dante, played here by Bill Camp and guided by the poet Virgil (Reg E. Cathey), on a fantastic voyage into Hades. Mr. Willis and Leslie Beatty complete the cast, portraying an assortment of damned souls in this economical, two-hour production. And these two — how shall we put it? — have all the fun.
“Like more tormented versions of the sad sacks Dorothy collects on the yellow brick road, they confide their tales of woe to the visitor from another world. Mr. Willis and Ms. Beatty cringe and shudder, shrink and quake, affixing faces worthy of compassion to the teeming multitudes of the Underworld. As the acting opportunities pile up, the surprise of this Inferno becomes clear: even if it is not quite a fully realized verse play, it is much more than a staged reading.
“Mr. Scanlan and his designers, John Michael Deegan and Sarah G. Conly, transfer Dante’s hell to the late 20th century. Dressed in business clothes, the actors traverse a mirrored multilevel set that vaguely resembles one of those nondescript office buildings along the interstate (which are some esthetes’ idea of hell, anyway). As the story unfolds, so does the scenery, which is divided into compartments reached by ladders and stairs that denote the descending circles of hell.
“Dante’s Inferno reflects the poem’s episodic nature. It’s how skillfully Mr. Scanlan and his collaborators operate within the episodes that makes this an intriguing evening. Mr. Willis is especially rewarding in his myriad character roles, and on both the technical and interpretive level, all four actors speak with a grasp of the work’s power and lyricism. This is a piece that gets better the lower it goes.” [. . .] –Peter Marks, New York Times, September 28, 1998 (retrieved November 26, 2021)
