“Florentino Ariza Sat Bedazzled”: Initiating an Exploration of Literary Texts with Dante in the Undergraduate Seminar

Dante’s Commedia provides a useful context or “frame” for a discussion of love in literature from the Middle Ages to the present day in the undergraduate seminar. Selected cantos of the Commedia can initiate an examination of love—lust, romantic love, caritas—and provide ways to analyze depictions of love by important authors. For example, Inferno Cantos I and III introduce the concept of the “journey”—Dante’s through the three realms of the afterlife, and our “journey” through a series of texts to be read over one semester. Dante’s education in Inferno constitutes an understanding of sin and of hell as the farthest place from God and His love. Moreover, in Canto I of Paradiso, Dante reiterates that God and His love can be found throughout creation “in some places more and in others less” (I: 3), and he concludes his poem with a vision of God and of the entire universe as moved by His love. Six great authors—Francis of Assisi, Vittoria Colonna, William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Flannery O’Connor, and Gabriel García Márquez—articulate in their own words this very human experience of love, of loving something or loving someone. In the process, they illuminate both Dante’s experience in the afterlife and ours in the modern world.

APRESIASI KARYA SASTRA SEBAGAI MEDIA PENANAMAN MORALITAS DALAM DAKWAH

Literary work is a subtle medium in conveying the values ​​of morality in da'wah. The beauty of words in literature can provide entertainment and imply the values ​​of personality that can teach goodness. So many moral values ​​that can be presented by literary works as a means of someone to convey the message of da'wah with beautiful sentences. So in addition to the works of literature can provide entertainment, the readers can also reap the wisdom of the message of da'wah presented the author with a beautiful and interesting language. The moral value can also be derived from the character of the story in the novel as well as from the beauty of the poetic sentence presented by a poet. The theme of love in literature such as the simple novel "Garis Waktu" from Fiersa Besari and the anthology of "Asal Muasal Pelukan" from Chandra Malik is an alternative to reading that is not only entertaining but implies moral values. although the main theme in this literary work is not including religious themes, but this work contains many good moral values ​​and can be applied in the behavior of community life. da'wah method through literary works is expected to be an alternative in the planting of morality without a sense of patronizing.