Play, with Place

Our sessions will focus on place, structure, translations and self-study using Dante’s “The Divine Comedy” and “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.” The class experience will include student volunteers willing to update Dante’s work using historic or modern characters and presenting three to five reasons for the character’s eligibility in Inferno, Purgatorio or Paradiso. The final session will focus on significant places in the lives of students, using Guernsey as an example. All students are welcome regardless of familiarity with the works cited.

 Optional Texts: Dante’s “The Divine Comedy,” any version. Joseph Gallagher’s “A Modern Reader’s Guide to Dante’s Divine Comedy.” Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer’s “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.” Len DeAngelis’ “Our Time.”

Len DeAngelis, who retired as the head of the English department at Middletown High School, was the 1990 Rhode Island Teacher of the Year. He has received Disney’s American Teacher Award and the 2018 Education for Service Award at UMass Boston. He has led seminars on “The Divine Comedy,” among other literature and writing for many years. He is also the Rhode Island ambassador for the Portrait Society of America. Len is the author of “Our Time.”