LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A little Dante, a little Shakespeare, some early music and Italian art – those elements and others mark the University of Louisville’s Renaissance Colloquium Oct. 10-11.
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and essayist W.S. Merwin will read from and discuss his 2000 translation of Dante Alighieri’s “Purgatorio” as the Commonwealth Distinguished Humanities lecturer for 2001. The 6 p.m. event Oct. 10 in Speed Art Museum auditorium will lead into a reception and book signing with music by U of L’s Early Music Ensemble, directed by Jack Ashworth.
Merwin’s five-decade career has yielded works including “A Mask for Janus,” “The Lice,” “The Vixen,” “The Folding Cliffs,” “The River Sound” and “The Carrier of Ladders”; the latter work won the Pulitzer in 1970.
U of L’s Commonwealth Center for the Humanities and Society is sponsoring the two-day free, public colloquium celebrating the Early Modern period. Other events include:
- Oct. 10
“Shakespeare Over Time,” 10 a.m., Ekstrom Library Auditorium.
“The ‘Purgatorio’ in Context,” noon, 300 Bingham Humanities Building.
Early Music Ensemble concert, 1:30 p.m., Speed Art Museum Satterwhite Room. - Oct. 11
“Myth in Renaissance Art” and “History Into Myth: The Image of Fra Girolamo Savonarola in 19th Century Art,” 11 a.m., 300 Bingham Humanities Building.
“Giovanni Pico della Mirandola on Human Freedom,” 12:30 p.m., 300 Bingham Humanities Building.
“The Rise of the Book” and “From Ink to Metal: How a New Technology Changed the Alphabet,” with reception afterward, 2:30 p.m., 300 Bingham Humanities Building.