The Dante Club

Lowell said he would not suffer the fellows of the Corporation to sit in judgment of a literature of which they knew nothing. And Hill did not even try to argue this point. It was a matter of principle for the Harvard fellows that they knew nothing of the living languages.

The next time Lowell saw Hill, the president was armed with a slip of blue paper on which was a handwritten quotation from a recently deceased British poet of some standing on the subject of Dante’s poem. “ ‘What hatred against the whole human race! What exultation and merriment at eternal and immitigable sufferings! We hold our nostrils as we read; we cover up our ears. Did one ever before see brought together such striking odors, filth, excrement, blood, mutilated bodies, agonizing shrieks, mythical monsters of punishment? Seeing this, I ca

Lowell laughed. “Shall we have England lord over our bookshelves? Why did we not just hand Lexington over to the redcoats and spare General Washington the trouble of war?” Lowell glimpsed something in Hill’s eye, something he sometimes saw in the untrained expression of a student, that made him believe the president could understand. “Till America has learned to love literature not as an amusement, not as mere doggerel to memorize in a college room, but for its humanizing and e

Hill tried hard not to sway from his purpose. “This idea of traveling through the afterlife, of recording Hell’s punishments—that’s downright harsh, Lowell. And a work like this so inaptly titled a ‘Comedy’! It’s medieval, it’s scholastic, and…”

“Catholic.” This shut Hill up. “That is what you mean, Reverend President. That it’s all too Italian, too Catholic for Harvard College?”

Hill raised a sly white eyebrow. “You must own that such frightful notions of God could not be sustained to our Protestant ears.”

The truth was Lowell was as unfriendly as the Harvard fellows toward the crowding of Irish papists along the wharfsides and in outlying suburbs of Boston. But the idea that the poem was some kind of edict from the Vatican… “Yes, we rather condemn people for eternity without the courtesy of informing them. And Dante calls it a commedia, my dear sir, because it is written in his rustic Italian tongue instead of Latin and because it ends happily, with the poet rising to Heaven, as opposed to a tragedia. Instead of endeavoring to manufacture a great poem out of what was foreign and artificial, he lets the poem make itself out of him.”

Lowell was pleased to see that the president was exasperated. “For pity’s sake, Professor, do you not think there is something at all rancorous, something malevolent, on the part of one to inflict merciless tortures on all who practice a list of particular sins? Imagine some man in public life today declaring his enemies’ places in Hell!” he argued.

“My dear reverend president, I am imagining it even as we speak. And do not misunderstand. Dante sends his friends down there, too. You may tell that to Augustus Ma

The members of the Harvard Corporation, the president and six pious men of affairs chosen from outside the College faculty, were firm in their commitment to the long-standing curriculum that had served them well—Greek, Latin, Hebrew, ancient history, mathematics, and science—and their corollary assertion that the inferior modern languages and literature would remain a novelty, something to fatten their catalogs. Longfellow had made some headway after Professor Ticknor’s departure, including initiating a Dante seminar and hiring a brilliant Italian exile named Pietro Bachi as an Italian instructor. His Dante seminar, from a lack of interest in the subject and the language, was consistently his least popular. Still, the poet enjoyed the zeal of a few minds passing through that course. One of the zealous was James Russell Lowell.

Now, after ten years of his own tussles with the administration, Lowell faced an event for which he had waited, for which the time was ripe as destiny: the discovery of Dante by America. But not only was Harvard swift and thorough in its discouragement, the Dante Club also faced an obstacle from inside: Holmes and his straddling.

Lowell sometimes took walks in Cambridge with Holmes’s oldest son, Oliver Wendell Holmes Junior. Twice a week, the law student would emerge from the Dane Law School building just when Lowell had finished his teaching at University Hall. Holmes could not appreciate his good fortune at having Junior, because he had made his son hate him—if only Holmes would listen, instead of making Junior talk. Lowell had asked the young man once whether Dr. Holmes ever spoke at home about the Dante Club. “Oh, certainly, Mr. Lowell,” Junior, handsome and tall, said, smirking, “and the Atlantic Club and the Union Club and the Saturday Club and the Scientific Club and the Historical Association and the Medical Society…”

Phineas Je

“Building another library for us, are you?” Lowell asked.

“The fellows seemed to be heated up speaking amongst themselves of your department anyway. They seemed downright determined. I do not mean to pry into your affairs, of course, only—”

“Between us, my dear Je

“I refused, of course,” Lowell said.

Je

They were interrupted by a few toasts, including the night’s most cheered improvisational rhyme, which had been demanded by the revelers from Dr. Holmes. Holmes, quick as always, even managed to draw attention to the raw style of the format.

“These after-di

“Child’s talk, my dear Lowell!” Je