The Dante Club
Review
Major Characters
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow-Protagonist and main translator of the club
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. - doctor and poet
James Russell Lowell- first poet of the club
George Washington Greene - pastor and oldest member
James Thomas Fields - publisher and member
Nicholas Rey - 1st African American policeman
Chief Kurtz - head of police
Judge Healey - first killed, neutral, refused the position to "defend" Dante
Reverend Talbot - second killed, simoniac
Phineas Jennison - third killed, schismatic
Dr. Manning - treasurer of Harvard Craper, traitor
Pliny Mead - student of Lowell's, also considered traitor
Pietro Bachi - former teacher of Italian at Harvard, and original suspect in
murder
• Dan Teal - soldier from the civil war.
Based on actual people
• Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes- the actual Dr.
Holmes was an American physician, poet,
professor, lecturer, and author; considered as
one of the best writers of the 19th century and
a member of the “Fireside Poets.”
Based on actual people
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow- Also
considered one of the five “Fireside Poets.” He
was an American poet and educator and the
first American to translate Dante’s The Divine
Comedy.
Based on actual people
• James Russell Lowell- Also one of the “Fireside
Poets.” American Romantic poet, critic, editor,
and diplomat.
Based on actual people
• George Washington Greene- an American
historian and grandson of Major-General
Nathaniel Greene, who served during the
American Revolutionary War.
Based on actual people
• James Thomas Fields- an American publisher,
editor, and poet.
The “Fireside Poets”
• A group of 19th-century American poets from
New England.
• The group is typically thought to comprise Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant,
John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell,
and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., who were the
first American poets whose popularity rivaled
that of British poets
• These poets usually used conventional forms and
meters in their poetry, making them suitable for
families entertaining at their fireside.
Setting: American Civil War Area
• Set amidst a series of murders in the American
Civil War era, it also concerns a club of poets,
including such historical figures as Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell
Holmes, Sr., and James Russell Lowell, who are
translating Dante’s The Divine Comedy from
Italian into English and who notice parallels
between the murders and the punishments
detailed in Dante's Inferno.
Importance of Setting
• The American Civil War, also known as the War Between the
States or simply the Civil War, was a civil war fought from 1861 to
1865 in the United States after several Southern slave states
declared their secession and formed the Confederate States of
America (the "Confederacy" or the "South"). The states that
remained were known as the "Union" or the "North". The war had
its origin in the fractious issue of slavery, especially the extension of
slavery into the western territories. Foreign powers did not
intervene. After four years of bloody combat that left over 600,000
soldiers dead and destroyed much of the South's infrastructure, the
Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, and the difficult
Reconstruction process of restoring national unity and guaranteeing
rights to the freed slaves began.
Summary
• 1865 Boston, a small group of literary geniuses puts the
finishing touches on America’s first translation of The Divine
Comedy and prepares to unveil the remarkable visions of
Dante to the New World. The powerful old guard of
Harvard College wants to keep Dante out—believing that
the infiltration of such foreign superstitions onto our
bookshelves would prove as corrupting as the foreign
immigrants invading Boston harbor. The members of the
Dante Club—poets and Harvard professors Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, James
Russell Lowell and publisher J. T. Fields —endure the
intimidation of their fellow Boston Brahmins for a sacred
literary cause, an endeavor that has sustained Longfellow in
the hellish aftermath of his wife’s tragic death by fire.
Summary
• But the plans of the Dante Club come to a
screeching halt when a series of murders erupts
through Boston and Cambridge. Only the
members of the Dante Club realize that the style
and form of the killings are stolen directly from
Dante’s Inferno and its singular account of Hell’s
punishments. With the police baffled, lives
endangered and Dante’s literary future at stake,
the Dante Club must shed its sheltered literary
existence and find a way to stop the killer.
Summary
• The brunt of the burden falls to Dr. Oliver
Wendell Holmes, whose unique literacy in both
poetry and medicine continues to pull him into
the center of the struggle. An outcast policeman,
Nicholas Rey, the first and only black member of
the Boston police department, places his future
on the line after discovering the secrets of the
Dante Club. Together, they find the key to the
murders where they least expect it: closer than
they could have imagined.
How are punishments symbolic?
(Symbolic retribution!)
• Members of the Dante Club, a group of poets translating The Divine
Comedy from Italian into English, notice the parallels between the
murders and the punishments detailed in Dante's Inferno.
• The club, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell
Holmes, Sr., and James Russell Lowell, sets out to solve the
murders, fearing that the truth will ruin Dante's burgeoning
reputation in America, thus making their translation a failure, as
well as the obvious problem that they would be virtually the only
suspects if they reported this information to the police.
• Then, Phineas Jennison, both a wealthy contributor to the Harvard
Corporation and friend to the translators (a "schismatic"), is sliced
open exactly down the middle—all killed in extreme fashion and
undeniable resemblance to the punishments of people in Dante's
Inferno.
Allegory Review
• Allegory is a literary device in which characters or
events in a literary, visual, or musical art form
represent or symbolize ideas and concepts.
• An allegory conveys its hidden message through
symbolic figures, actions, imagery, and/or events.
• As a literary device, an allegory in its most
general sense is an extended metaphor.
– As a class, let’s discuss how Dante’s Inferno is an
allegory, as a review 
Some questions to consider….
• In Dante’s Inferno, Dante’s poetic idol Virgil
leads him through the dangerous passages of
the afterlife. In what ways do the characters of
THE DANTE CLUB guide one another? Who
would you say is the real leader?
• How does the backdrop of the American Civil
War influence the events of the novel?