We’re all adults here, so we need to have a frank talk about Dante. 

I’ve been in Great Books I for a few weeks now, and it’s been fantastic so far. That is, until my prof started reading Dante’s “Inferno” through some twisted, dirty-minded lens. 

He took the story of Paolo and Francesca — a sweet, touching story of the love of literature — and turned it into a hideous monstrosity of what I can only describe as “going on a date before marriage.” 

I couldn’t believe it. Dante would never have written about anything more racy than premarital eye contact — he was a good Christian. My professor’s talk of “courtly love” (his thinly veiled disguise for impropriety), “days of dalliance” (filth…pure filth), and “leisurely conjunction” (I threw up after class) was disappointing, to put it mildly. 

We need to hold our English department to higher standards. 

Now to be clear, I’m not arguing for bowdlerizing. I don’t think we should expunge the foundational books of the Western Tradition. After all, there’s nothing in the classics to be censored — otherwise, they wouldn’t be classics.  

What I do think, however, is that we need to ensure that our English department reads responsibly. 

I know the arguments against me: Plato’s “Symposium” mentions kissing in a couple of places, so do you want to ban that? How about the story of Lancelot and Guenevere, which talks about holding hands? What of the “Odyssey,” in which Odysseus and Circe share a bed, but probably stay far enough apart so that they don’t touch? What about Shakespeare, who makes a joke about the consummation of a marriage somewhere in one of his plays?

Do I want to get rid of all these excellent stories just because they obliquely reference that natural human impulse which is finally fulfilled in a good solid side-hug?

No, of course not. I just think that we should read these properly — as the allegories, philosophical treatises, or pure-minded, edifying stories that they are. 

The “Thousand and One Nights” is a gorgeous reflection on the potential of narrative. The “Song of Songs” is only about Christ and the Church. And “Moby Dick” is just a whale.

Hillsdale English would have us believe that Paolo and Francesca are in the Inferno because they were a little closer than just really good friends in the Lord. This is a rotten lie — as everybody knows, Dante, Shakespeare, and Aristophanes would never have written about yucky things like kissing. 

You see, they were ancients. Their minds weren’t contaminated, as ours are, by the pervasive grossness of modern life. They only wrote about G-rated subjects, which is why I plan to read “Gawain and the Green Knight” to my children. Those authors of old were not just literary geniuses: Their work was profound, thought-provoking, and, most importantly, completely clean. 

Mentioning marital relations would have been as shocking to them as it would have been to the author of, say, Deuteronomy. 

That’s why we need to encourage our English department not to read stuff into these books, even if they’ve been corrupted by going to graduate school in English. 

“To the pure, all things are pure.” Somebody smart once said that, and it means that, as Christians, we have a responsibility to only read clean, high-souled literature like Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” or Catullus 16. 

Anything else would be almost as silly as reading Milton’s “Paradise Lost” instead of just reading the inspired version. 

It’s not hard. But if we seriously need an overhaul of our literature, may I recommend an author whom no one ever dared read as mentioning “days of dalliance”? He’s a classic — a literary giant — a real humdinger of an author.

I refer, of course, to Aristotle. Get your minds out of the gutter, English. 

 

Joseph P. Oldsboy is a freshman. He wanted to major in English until he got grossed out. Now, he hopes to major in Olds with a concentration in Lower Right. 

 

This piece was edited by Zack Chen.