“Before Beatrice fled from Florence to Venice and beyond in my story, she migrated from the classroom to the written page, then set sail and found a welcome dock at Twelve Winters Journal.

“A course I taught on the Divine Comedy drew students with a wide spectrum of academic interests. I encouraged them to undertake a term project related to their field of studies, as long as it included an account of their research and how their secondary sources contributed to the creation of their final product (a bit like this commentary). Art students handed in paintings and sculptures; music students composed, performed, and recorded musical pieces; writing majors wrote poetry and stories; theater majors wrote and staged plays; film students scripted, shot, and showed movies; philosophy majors wrote Platonic dialogues. My office became a museum of intriguing works of art.

“Beatrice often figured in the students’ projects, which gave me the idea for a piece that showed how things might have looked through her eyes. After I retired and began to dabble in ‘creative writing,’ I emulated my students and took on the project of drafting a story presented from her perspective. [. . .]” –Sante Matteo, “Commentary on ‘Escape from Paradise’,” Twelve Winters

Read Sante Matteo’s story “Escape from Paradise” at Twelve Winters‘ website here.

See also Sante Matteo’s poem “Assignation” (here) and his essay on Dante and baseball (here).

Contributed by Sante Matteo