L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, MAY 12, 2016 www.italoamericano.org 8 T o a n I t a l i a n , D a n t e i s croce e delizia, pleasure a n d p a i n : f o r c e f u l l y immersed in the study of his heavenly works during the rebel- lious years of adolescence, we usually begin our relationship with the Dantean world with the wrong foot. But then comes adulthood and, with it, this strange necessi- ty to pick those old high school volumes and read, to discover the true beauty and complex cre- ativity of Dante's works. Dante does not simply and only belong to Italy, though, he is a world patrimony: witness to this, also the presence, in the US, of one of the world best known Dantean institutions, the D a n t e S o c i e t y o f A m e r i c a . Created by poets, with the aim of kindling the flame of Dante's work among people of all educa- tion and social extraction, the S o c i e t y i s t o d a y h e a d e d b y respected Italianist and Berkeley professor Albert Russell Ascoli, with whom I recently have had the honor – and pleasure – to have a chat. What is your cultural back- ground? I am the son of an Italian- Jewish father who emigrated at the age of 16 after the imposition of anti-semitic racial laws by M u s s o l i n i i n 1 9 3 8 a n d a n American mother whose family had lived in and around New England since the 17 th centu- ry. I grew up in Champaign- Urbana, IL, where my father was a p r o f e s s o r o f h i g h e n e r g y Physics and my mother was a p r o f e s s i o n a l s o c i a l w o r k e r . Though I visited Italy briefly at the age of 15 months and then again at 15 years of age, I did not begin learning Italian in earnest until my senior year of High School. In college, first at Grinnell and then at the University of Illinois I was an English major, with a minor in Italian. After graduation I spent a year in Italy on a fellowship, and it was then that I really learned to speak and read the language fluently. I began graduate school at Cornell University in English but was soon converted to the Italian Ph.D. through my studies of B o c c a c c i o a n d D a n t e w i t h Professor Giuseppe Mazzotta ( w h o n o w t e a c h e s a t Yale). Since 1996 I have taught i n t h e I t a l i a n S t u d i e s D e p a r t m e n t a t U C B e r k e l e y where we offer a range of gradu- ate, undergraduate and general education courses in Italian and in English. How did your passion for Dante and his work develop? My passion for Dante was, strangely, first awoken by read- ings of T.S. Eliot, who consid- ered Dante, with Shakespeare, one of the two greatest authors in the Western tradition. It was f o s t e r e d i n m y s t u d i e s w i t h Mazzotta. Yet my doctoral dis- sertation (1983) and first book ( 1 9 8 7 ; P r i n c e t o n U n i v e r s i t y Press) were on a Renaissance author, Ariosto, whose chivalric romance, Orlando furioso, is also one of the great master- pieces of the Italian canon. It was only later that I began to work on Dante and in particular on his concepts of what poetry and poetic authorship are. These studies culminated, after 20 years of research and writing, in the publication of my book, Dante and the Making of a Modern Author in 2008 with Cambridge University Press. It was soon thereafter that I was elected to the Council of the D a n t e S o c i e t y o f A m e r i c a ( 2 0 0 9 ) , t h e n b e c o m i n g V i c e President (2011-2014) and after- wards President (2014 on). L e t ' s t a l k a b o u t i t : t h e Dante Society of America has a fascinating history, would you tell us something more? T h e D a n t e S o c i e t y o f America was first founded in 1 8 8 1 b y H e n r y W a d s w o r t h Longfellow, who had recently completed the first American t r a n s l a t i o n o f t h e D i v i n e Comedy. Longfellow and his circle, known as the Dante Club ( f i c t i o n a l i z e d i n M a t t h e w Perry's novel of that title) were b a s e d a t H a r v a r d University. The Society aimed to foster the "study and appreci- a t i o n " o f t h e C o m m e d i a (Dante's original Italian title), and for a long time its member- ship was largely composed of scholars and amateurs. I n t h e 2 0 t h c e n t u r y t h e Society took on an increasingly academic orientation, centered on the publication of its journal Dante Studies, and drifted away from its original mission of pro- moting the study of Dante in a larger public context. W h a t a b o u t t h e s o c i e t y today, in the 21 st century? With the presidencies first of Nancy Vickers (former president of Bryn Mawr college) and then of myself, the Society entered into a period of reform whose t w i n g o a l s w e r e t o p u t t h e Society on a firm financial basis and to renew and reassert its mission, which is now clearly d e f i n e d a s e n c o u r a g i n g " t h e study and appreciation of the time, life, works, and cultural legacy of Dante Alighieri". The period of renewal saw the cre- ation of a new website with vast- ly expanded resources to assist members of all kinds in their r e a d i n g a n d a p p r e c i a t i o n o f Dante's many works (not the Commedia alone). The website can be accessed at https://www.dantesociety.org/, w h e r e i n t e r e s t e d f o l k s c a n browse to their hearts' content but also may become members a n d d o n o r - s u p p o r t e r s o f t h e Society (which is still in ongoing n e e d o f f i n a n c i a l assistance). While we continue to embrace the scholarly side of our mission, we have made a concerted and continuing effort t o p r o m o t e t h e i n t e r e s t o f younger students (middle school and high school) and of the gen- eral public in our poet, who con- tinues to exert a fascination in many ways, from Sandow Birk's updated series of visual images f r o m t h e C o m e d y t o D a n Brown's popular novel Inferno. In a time when the traditional h u m a n i t i e s a r e i n c r e a s i n g l y under threat, and in particular the study of Italy's great literary and artistic tradition has also suf- fered setbacks in the schools and the university, we believe that this is the right and necessary time to do all we can to make sure that the great poet and his works are not forgotten. That is, indeed, a beautiful goal: I read you have already started rising awareness about Dante and his art at secondary school level… A first step, but only a first step, in this direction is the cre- ation of the annual Robert M. Durling prize (named for the great scholar and translator of the Commedia) of $1000 to a secondary school educator who has introduced Dante into her or his courses in an especially cre- ative way (a description of how to nominate a teacher for this prize can be found on the web- site). In future we will take more initiatives, including: pub- l i s h i n g e x e m p l a r y e s s a y s o n Dante by High School students; creating a list of Dante scholars throughout the country willing to lecture and lead discussions on the poet and his works, whether to students or to interested mem- bers of the general public. I thank you for this opportunity to share this news about our "Dante in the Schools" initiative, and I hope your readers will not hesi- tate to contact me with any ques- tions they may have about it (ascoli@berkeley.edu). Dante in the USA: an inter view with the Dante Society of America's President Albert Russell Ascoli Professor Albert Russel Ascoli. Image courtesy of Albert Russel Ascoli SAN FRANCISCO ITALIAN COMMUNITY FRANCESCA BEZZONE

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