1. How to Read Dante as a Non-Christian

2. Midway along the journey of our life
I woke to find myself in a dark wood,
for I had wondered off from the straight path. (I, 1-3)

3. Four levels of interpretation:
(1) the literal or historical level; what happened
(2) the allegorical level; what you should believe
(3) the moral or tropological level; what you should do
(4) the anagogical or eschatological level;
the afterlife, what is to come

7. As doves, called by desire to return
to their sweet nest, with wings outstretched and poised,
float downward through the air, guided by their will,
so these two left the flock where Dido is
and came toward us through the malignant air,
such was the tender power of my call.
(V, 82-87)

8. One day we read, to pass the time away,
of Lancelot, how he had fallen in love;
we were alone, innocent of suspicion.
Time and again our eyes were brought together
by the book we read; our faces flushed and paled.
To the moment of one line alone we yielded:
it was when we read about those longed-for lips
now being kissed by such a famous lover,
that this one (who shall never leave my side)
then kissed my mouth, and trembled as he did.
Our Galehot was that book and he who wrote it.
That day we read no further. (V, )

9. … deep in myself the burning wish
to know the world and have experience
of all man’s vices, of all human worth.
(XXVI, 97-99)
… do not deny
yourself experience of what is beyond,
behind the sun, in the world they call unpeopled.
Consider what you came from: you are Greeks!
You were not born to live like mindless brutes
but to follow paths of excellence and knowledge! (XXVI, )

10. I know that I grieved then, and now again
I grieve when I remember what I saw,
and more than ever I restrain my talent
lest it run a course that virtue has not set;
for if a lucky star or something better
has given me this good, I must not misuse it. (XXVI, 19-24)