a lecture by Professor Cormac O Cuilleanain
Dante leaves us with many haunting images of this world and the next. With the aid of some PowerPoint slides, tonight’s lecture will explore a significant “family” of water imagery that flows through the Comedy, in both real and metaphorical forms. From the classical rivers of the underworld in the Inferno, to the rivers of Tuscany and the Earthly Paradise in Purgatorio, to the river of light near the end of Paradiso, we will see how similar images, presented in changing context, can help to reinforce and to convey some of the central messages and experiences of the poem.Professor Cormac Ó Cuilleanáin is head of the Department of Italian at Trinity College Dublin. He has published on Dante, on Boccaccio and on literary translation. He is also an occasional crime novelist.