NEXT ENGLISH MEETING of the 2017-2018 PROGRAM YEAR
THIS COMING WEDNESDAY
We are very please to announce that our English meeting presenter next Wednesday March 14 will be Lloyd Howard, Asst. Prof. of Italian (Retired), University of Victoria B.C. Canada.
After a brief over-view of Dante’s world, Prof. Howard will turn to the first line of the Divine Comedy, where the reader determines Dante’s age of 35 when he appears in the guise of the poem’s main character. As a literary figure, this protagonist, “Dante the pilgrim,” will be forever 35. But as the writer of this poem, Dante, referenced as “Dante the poet,” will not be frozen in time. Cast out of Florence at age 37, he will grow old in exile, where he writes along-side his otherworldly, traveling pilgrim from the depths of Inferno, out and up, through Purgatorio to Paradiso. The aging poet’s implicit problems with failing eyesight and memory are filtered through the struggles of Dante the pilgrim, whose eyes as a mere mortal are constantly challenged to see their way to the heights of Paradise, and whose compromised memory as a mere mortal in this heavenly realm is a constant source of frustration, knowing that he has been sent on this journey precisely so that his recall can serve as the text of the poem yet to be written.
Lloyd Howard received his PhD from the Johns Hopkins University in 1976. A year later he was appointed Assistant Professor of Italian at the University of Victoria where he taught until his retirement as Professor in 2016. Along with teaching, he served as Chair of the Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies for a total of 15 years, Acting Dean of the Faculty of Humanities on two separate occasions, and Director of the Medieval Studies Program for 3 years. His research focused initially on the extant poetry of Guido Cavalcanti, before turning to Dante’s Commedia. Along with a number of articles, he has written two books: Formulas of Repetition in Dante’s Commedia: Signposted Journeys across Textual Space (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001); Virgil the Blind Guide: Marking the Way through the Divine Comedy (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010). Scholarly recognition of his methodology includes the former book being chosen as an “Outstanding Title” for 2002 by the American Library Association, and one of its chapters being selected by Harold Bloom to form part of Bloom’s edition on the Commedia: Dante Alighieri, published in 2011. Lloyd’s articles in more recent years have been published by Letteratura Italiana Antica in Rome.
As usual our Pre-Dante Pasta Dinner will be ready at 6:30 and the program will start at 7:30. Please feel free to bring an antipasto, dolce, or vino to share. The cost of the dinner is $8 per person or $15 per couple.
If you plan to come for the dinner as well as the presentation, please make your reservation by 5:00pm Monday March 12 before the meeting. Click on the following link - https://goo.gl/forms/0kwzN7h6pQXESZFH3 - and follow the instructions or call the Activity Line (425) 243-7663. This will help our volunteer cook, this month it's Giuseppe Tassone, the Language School Director, know how much pasta to prepare.
The meeting will be in our usual place, Garden House, 2336 15th Avenue South (In the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Seattle). Directions are on the DAS website: http://www.danteseattle.org/gather.html
Feel free to come early to help set up the room and start visiting. And, in any case, please come.
A presto - Dan DeMatteis,
President, Dante Alighieri Society of Washington
