“Polish Writers Read Dante” is the title of a Polish-Italian scientific conference held in Rome in connection with this year’s 700th anniversary of the death of the author of the “Divine Comedy”. The symposium was organized at the Polish Institute at the Tiber.
The conference, opened by the Polish Ambassador to Italy Anna Maria Anders, brought together Italian Polish and Polish Italian scholars.
“Dante at Mickiewicz’s” is the title of a lecture given by Professor Mikołaj Sokołowski from the Institute of Literary Research in Warsaw. Krystyna Jaworska from the University of Turin spoke about Dante’s motifs in Juliusz Słowacki’s poem “Piast Dantyszek” and Marina Ciccarini from the University of Roma Tre devoted her speech to the confrontation: Dante and Krasiński, i.e., “The Divine Comedy” and “The Undivine Comedy”.
Francesco Cabras from the Pedagogical University of Cracow devoted his lecture to the motifs of Dante in “The Prayer Book” by Cyprian Kamil Norwid and Andrea F. De Carlo from the University of Naples to the echoes of “Inferno” in the works of Józef Ignacy Kraszewski.
The Polish scholar Andrea Ceccherelli from the University of Bologna prepared a lecture on “Gombrowicz corrects Dante”, and Luigi Marinelli from Rome’s La Sapienza University spoke about Dante’s motifs in Czesław Miłosz.
The poet and writer Jarosław Mikołajewski from the Adam Mickiewicz Museum of Literature in Warsaw was also invited to take part in the symposium so that he could talk about his work on the translation of the “Divine Comedy”.
The academic conference is the last item on the agenda of this year’s 18th edition of Corso Polonia, a festival of Polish culture in Italy.
In an interview with PAP (Polish Press Agency) on Friday, the director of the Polish Institute, Łukasz Paprotny, indicated that the conference devoted to Dante aimed to present issues concerning the reception of the “Divine Comedy” in Polish literature, as well as the contribution made by Polish writers to the vitality of the work’s motifs in European culture.
He pointed out that the event is co-organized by the Department of Modern Literature, Languages and Cultures of the University of Bologna, with the patronage of the Association of Italian Polish Scholars and the Italian National Committee for the Celebration of the 700th Anniversary of Dante’s Death.
The head of the Institute noted that in previous years the Corso Polonia festival had been addressed to the public of Rome.
“After a break due to lockdown last year, the 2021 edition was also targeted audiences in other cities. The program also included events organised in Bologna, Milan, Naples and Ravenna,” stressed Paprotny.