Robert Hollander offers insight on The Divine Comedy of Dante. He pays special attention to the first part of the poem, The Inferno, and discusses the Roman Catholic Church’s position on the poem.
In the second segment [16:01], Ronald Witt provides a contemporary definition of humanism and discusses how the concept has changed from the time of the Renaissance. He uses the works of Petrarch and Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano, The Book of the Courtier, as examples.
At the time of these interviews, Hollander, a trustee of the National Humanities Center, was professor of European and comparative literature at Princeton University.
Witt, a Fellow at the Center (1983-84), was professor of history at Duke University.
This edition of Soundings was conducted by Wayne J. Pond.
