Michael Chenchard’s Reviews > The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso > Status Update

The Catholic Church would not dare ban The Divine Comedy because to try to burn a painting, to tear down an artwork, would be to go against God.

Truth and Beauty. First and foremost, art is an intense, emotional experience. It then goes into you, opens you, and allows for the entry of ideas into you. Over time. Your perception of reality changes. That is why the Divine Comedy was proof of God. Because God could enter you, and God could transform the way you saw the world.

On the Yale Lux et Veritas Dante program: Why teach Dante? Because I believe that in this time and age, when there is war, when there is hopelessness, when there is conflict, I believe that resummoning Dante to this world will give humanity hope.

To read Dante, you have to take a leap of faith. You have to believe this is divine. You have to believe this is perfection. You’ll be transformed by it. So why not just take the risk? Put away your beliefs about our world and fully embrace divinity.

The greatest revolution you can commit as an individual is to recognize the humanity, the divinity, of yourself.

and, if you spend your lifetime studying the divine comedy, I guarantee that you will become one of our greatest writers...

The Divine Comedy is the secret Bible of humanity. If you are an intellectual, the Divine Comedy is what will guide you in your imaginations.

One of the central questions will be, “How did he write this?”
And Jiang’s argument is that he could only have written this if God exists.