N.B.: As a reminder, I will be using W.S. Merwin’s translation of Purgatorio. Dante stands now at the foot of Mount Purgatory, about to begin an ascent of purification. As a Protestant standing beside him, there is a part of me that wants to say, “Um, you know you don’t actually have to do this, right?…

Virgin Annunciate by Antonello da Messina Again.     Closer. This time only one hand startles, Losing her place in the book of hours. The other goes on worrying the light Habit of modesty protecting the angels. Will it be the image bound to emerge from this blur of words Shuddering through her? A full moon of the…

Jump to How to Read Dante In the Information Age, we don’t have time to read all the links we see on Facebook or that we bookmark with our favorite browser extension, much less to keep up with the magazines to which we subscribe or the shows and movies all our friends are watching. We…

John Donne on Luke 2:6–7   Immensitie cloystered in thy dear wombe, Now leaves his welbelov’d imprisonment, There he hath made himselfe to his intent Weake enough, now into our world to come; But Oh, for thee, for him, hath th’Inne no roome? Yet lay him in this stall, and from the Orient, Starres and…