"No longer wait for word or sign from me.
Your will is free, upright, and sound.
Not to act as it chooses is unworthy:
over yourself I crown and miter you."

(Purgatorio 27.139-142)

These are the words Virgil tells Dante when he has climbed to the top of Mount Purgatory, seeing and experiencing the cleansing that prepares souls to enter Paradise. While many readers experience the eternal damnation described in Dante's afterlife in Inferno, far fewer read Purgatorio, which offers a compelling view of transformative conversions, poetic legacies, and the yearning for self-betterment that lies at the core of the human spirit. In this reading group led by Alejandro Cuadrado (Columbia) we will read the second part of Dante's Divine Comedy in translation. The meetings will take place over dinner in the Morningside office and are open to undergraduates, graduate students, and recent graduates.