When Anthony Esolen returned my copy of Dante’s “Inferno” after signing it, I was eager to see what he had written inside.
I was only a first-semester freshman when Esolen spoke at Hillsdale College in 2012 for the CCA, but I had heard much of the renowned teacher, author, and translator, and I admired his work. Particularly, his name was on the cover as translator of the “Divine Comedy” books which I was reading for my Great Books class.
I flipped to the title page of the “Inferno” and read the scribble: “Emma, Don’t let this happen to you!” His note made me laugh, but also moved me.
Students over the past few years have often hoped the administration and class officers would choose Esolen as commencement speaker. For the graduating class of 2016, this could and should be the year.
Esolen is a professor of English at Providence College in Rhode Island, with an interest in classical, medieval, and Renaissance literature. A graduate of Princeton University and the University of North Carolina, Esolen has authored many books and is senior editor of Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity, as well as a frequent contributor to other magazines such as First Things. He studies and reads many languages, and has translated, in addition to Dante, Lucretius’ “On the Nature of Things.”
Esolen not only has the educational and literary repertoire that many Hillsdale students value in a commencement speaker, but he has other experience and knowledge that will interest students of all majors. The professor is a cross between a brilliant Dante scholar and a writer for The Onion. I mean, he told a freshman girl not to go to hell. Blunt, bold, and funny. He was a sarcastic guest in a Fox News interview about one of his books, and one of his YouTube video’s is called “Shakespeare vs. Dante: Who Wins in a Cage Match?” One of his books is wittily titled “Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child.”
As commencement speaker, Esolen will incorporate knowledge of culture, current events, education, literature, politics, and religion. If chosen, Esolen will appeal to all kinds of students—from the arts to the sciences—and provide witty yet meaningful insight.
His words will encourage us in our commencement, captivate our attentions with rich reflections, and summate our years of learning.
Esolen’s note to me, though seemingly written in jest, gave a very real warning: be afraid. It is the same warning that freshmen hear at Provost David Whalen’s speech during orientation. Be afraid of how the Hillsdale education will mess with your mind and soul. Be afraid of those things that will hinder or even harm growth of the soul. The warning remains even now, and, looking back over my college years, I realize the stakes and the gain even more clearly, how much there is to lose, and how much to change. I am grateful for Esolen’s advice.
Esolen’s lecture in 2012 was on epic poetry and the moral imagination. In a Q&A with the Collegian then, he spoke on imagination and education, and how important it is that our education lead us to change and awe: “Imagination is the faculty that allows human beings to wonder… It’s natural in human beings to learn. So a great lot in the battle is won not by figuring out ways to foster the imagination, but just removing all those influences that snuff it out.”
So at the end of a college experience that has both fostered the imagination and snuffed out the ignorance, where I not only read and hopefully learned to avoid the Inferno, but also journeyed toward wonder, I would like to hear what other words of advice Anthony Esolen has for me and for the Class of 2016.
