NOTICE: This is an older course recorded with Adobe Connect and/or Vimeo recordings. We are currently working to replace the recordings with new Zoom recordings.  Please don't hesitate to email us at homeschoolconnections@gmail.com with any questions.

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 Dante's Paradiso (Heaven) 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 lectures.

• Next, click on Class 1 Recording and watch Dr. Russell's lecture.

• Students should then click on Quiz: Session One. After completing the quiz it can be self-checked or checked by parents. Answer keys are provided in that class's module.

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

• Repeat until all 11 classes are complete.

• 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 Classes: 11

Prerequisite: Ability to read the book with some enjoyment

Suggested Grade Level: 11th and 12th grade or college level

Suggested Credit: 1 full semester of Classical Literature

Instructor: Henry Russell, PhD

Course Description: Dante Alighieri is the only “secular” author in praise of whom a Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church has written an encyclical letter. His Holiness 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.” Simply interpreted, 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.

Dante teaches us what it means 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. The Comedy provides a vision of eternity in order to teach man how to live in time, in his brief excursus before forever. Outside of the writings of the Saints, the Paradiso is the most beautiful vision of the vast energy and glory of the fully achieved Christian life. It liberates our emotions and our souls toward the beautiful and good, making a mockery of the 21st-century’s slanderous view of the Christ-centered life as passive or narrow. Instead we see the armies of love gathered in all eternity, having done the work of creating all that is best in civilization here on earth. No one can lay claim to liberal education until he has made a serious beginning on understanding The Divine Comedy.

Course Materials: The Divine Comedy, Part 3; Paradise. We will use the Dorothy Sayers edition, ISBN number 0140441050. Click on the book title for ordering information.

Homework: Weekly quiz, midterm, and final. Answer keys are provided for parental or self-grading. Expect 1 to 1.5 hours of reading each week.

©2014 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.