Join Dr. Russell and your fellow students to learn why Dante is the greatest author of the greatest book on the greatest subject of any ever written by a man not known by the Church to be directly inspired by God!

Instructor Access (Optional grading support) is available for this course. Please note: this is ONLY recommended if you wish to write the optional paper. All quizzes are internally graded in this course. Optional papers will be completed via this page (click here) for an Instructor Access fee of $75.

How to get the most out of The Inferno (Hell) by Dante with Dr. Henry Russell:

• First, carefully read the course details below and obtain the book.

• Prepare a course notebook for note taking during reading and recordings.

• Next, listen to the class recording.

• Students should then click on Quiz: Class One. After completing the quiz, it will be graded automatically.

• If you need review, go back and watch the recording again and/or go over the PowerPoint.

• Repeat until all 12 classes are complete plus the Final.

• Once the course is completed to the parent's satisfaction, there is a Certificate of Completion at the end to be filled in and printed for your records. Make sure to record your grades (HSC does not provide record keeping services).

Total number of class meetings: 12

Duration of each class: ~55 minutes

Prerequisite: Ability to enjoy reading the work

Suggested grade level: 10th to 12th grade

Suggested credit: One full semester Literature

Instructor: Dr. Henry Russell

Course description: Dante Alighieri is the only “secular” author in praise of whom a Pontiff has written an encyclical letter. Pope Benedict XV’s “In Praeclara Summorum” of 1921 rightly says, “We admire in him not only supreme height of genius but also the immensity of the subject which holy religion put to his hand. If his genius was refined by meditation and long study of the great classics it was tempered even more gloriously, as We have said, by the writings of the Doctors and the Fathers which gave him the wings on which to rise to a higher atmosphere than that of restricted nature.”

Dante teaches us what it might mean to be a Catholic in every element of our thought and culture. His work is not only sublimely beautiful, but filled with the most important truths. He was a complete Catholic in an age of political and heretical turmoils, but an age blessed with the influence of towering saints like Bernard, Francis, Dominic, and Thomas Aquinas. His Divine Comedy intends to teach us how to harmonize the demands of Church and State, community and individual, authority and conscience, divine and natural knowledge, intellect and emotion. The Comedy provides a vision of eternity in order to teach man how to live in time in his brief span before forever. The Inferno provides the greatest examination of our conscience as we come to see our own affinities to the souls who have chosen Hell. Again, as Benedict XV wrote, “The more profit you draw from study of him the higher will be your culture, irradiated by the splendours of truth, and the stronger and more spontaneous your devotion to the Catholic Faith.”

Course outline:

Class 1: Biography and Medieval Thought
Class 2: Cantos 1-2
Class 3: Cantos 3-4
Class 4: Cantos 5-9
Class 5: Cantos 10-12
Class 6: Cantos 13-15
Class 7: Cantos 16-18
Class 8: Cantos 19-21
Class 9: Cantos 22-24
Class 10: Cantos 25-27
Class 11: Cantos 28-30
Class 12: Cantos 31-34

Course Materials: We will use the Dorothy Sayers edition, ISBN: 9780140440065 (https://amzn.to/3p1HUAa)

Homework: Approximately 26 pages of poetry and notes per class. About an hour’s reading. There will be computer-graded quizzes available after each class, a mid-term and a final.

©2023 Homeschool Connections and Henry Russell, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

This course is designed by Henry Russell, Ph.D.

• This material is only to be used for its intended purpose by active subscribers of Homeschool Connections. Any other use without explicit permission is in violation of the seventh commandment (yes, the 7th commandment) and in violation of US and International copyright laws.

• You may print or download to local hard disk extracts for your personal homeschool and non-commercial use only. This is not to be used for homeschool co-ops without express written permission from Homeschool Connections.

Technical Help: If you experience technical difficulty with watching the recorded classes or have a question about course content, please email us at homeschoolconnections@gmail.com.