This is the opening event of the Fordham Reads Dante initiative for the AY 2017-18.
Joseph Viscomi, James G. Kenan Distinguished Professor of English, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Co-Editor/Creator of the William Blake Archive, will give a talk on “On Reading Blake’s Dante”.
“Reading Blake’s Dante” examines Dante’s presence in William
Blake’s art and life, focusing on the 102 watercolor illustrations
to the Divine Comedy and seven engravings to the Inferno that
Blake executed between 1825 and 1827. The lecture will examine
these spectacular illustrations, discuss what illustrating Dante
meant to Blake, and demonstrate the role that the William Blake
Archive can play in our attempts to understand the subject of
“Blake and Dante.”
