ABSTRACT
This chapter documents the responses of incarcerated readers to Dante’s Divine Comedy, focusing on the ways in which two groups of men behind bars interpreted and reimagined Dante’s vision of justice. One group participated in a Dante workshop in the New York State Correctional Facility known as Sing Sing. The other workshop took place on the outskirts of Florence in a prison near Dante’s birthplace, Casa Circondariale di Sollicciano. The men of Sing Sing and Sollicciano saw many parallels between Dante’s journey and their own life stories. “I Identify with Dante,” said one of the incarcerated readers. “It was like how I’m living, being in prison, going through a lot of trials and tribulations, but having will and determination. Dante, you know, he had will and determination, and I so much identify with that.” Many in the workshops saw Dante’s story as a catalyst for self-reflection: “Prison was our context, our hell, but hell was also our experience before we got here. Dante helps us to explore what happened in our lives and understand it. We can re-examine all the moments of our past through this poem.”
