Alexander Andrée, professor of Latin at CMS, was featured this weekend in the Toronto Salutes Dante project, while reading canto 4 of the Inferno in Swedish.
Andrée hails from Sweden and reads a translation of the Inferno by Ingvar Björkeson, a Swedish independent scholar who has translated numerous classics into Swedish, often with high acclaim for the translations' literary merits.
Andrée chose canto 4 of the Inferno because of its portrayal of limbo, a place in the afterlife where righteous non-Christian souls can live without the torments of hell.
When asked when he first read Dante, Andrée answers that he cannot recall. "I have this feeling that Dante has been with me for a long time," he says, "as I think many medievalists and classicists alike do. He forms such an essential part of the Western canon.... He manages to put the entire scholastic edifice into literature, into verse."
Further readings in the Toronto Salutes Dante project include canto 1 in Anishinaabemowin, canto 2 in Latin, canto 3 in Abruzzese, and canto 5 in Portuguese.