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In the Divine Comedy, Italian poet Dante Alighieri unlocks the reader鈥檚 imagination with detailed descriptions of pain, warfare, deception, and punishment, drawing on medieval Christian theology and philosophy. Similarly, John Milton鈥檚 Paradise Lost explores supernatural themes through tales of creation, the fall of man, and redemption.

Jane Kelley Rodeheffer

In professor Jane Kelley Rodeheffer鈥檚 Great Books Colloquium seminar, students follow Dante鈥檚 journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven, and get a glimpse of how Milton justifies the will of God through the 12 books of his epic poem. In a rare collaboration between the Great Books and fine arts departments, Rodeheffer invites her students to explore how poets like Dante and Milton summon images through words.

鈥淭hese poems are intended to engage the reader鈥檚 visual imagination,鈥� she explains. 鈥淭hey have been represented by artists for centuries, including Blake, Botticelli, Dor茅, and Dal矛, and naturally lend themselves to illustration,鈥� points out the Fletcher Jones Chair of Great Books, whose students receive a unique opportunity to bring their readings to life.

Gretchen Batcheller

First launched in 2014, Rodeheffer approached associate art professor Gretchen Batcheller about a collaboration that would enable both of their students to grow as communicators, as well as professionals. Rodeheffer鈥檚 Great Books students would choose cantos from the Inferno and write a description of the tale鈥檚 settings, and Batcheller鈥檚 painting students would work with them to illustrate the words using multiple mediums.

鈥淢y students are participating not only in a tradition of reading these texts and interpreting them鈥攚hich they do in papers鈥攂ut also interpreting them visually,鈥� says Rodeheffer. 鈥淚 want them to see that the tradition they鈥檙e learning is multifaceted. It鈥檚 not just words on a page.鈥�

Students received another opportunity in 2015, when they collaborated to visually depict scenes from Milton鈥檚 Paradise Lost. In order for this collaboration to work effectively, both sets of students met once a week over the course of a month to further discuss their vision for the painting.

For history major Katherine Anderson, this experience taught her that while everyone read the same brief descriptions of a selected scene, they all nnmagined the designs differently in their minds.

鈥淚 wrote what I envisioned the painting to look like, but the artist did not necessarily go by what I wrote. It was interesting to see how she made connections and interpreted things differently,鈥� she says.

With a ratio of one artist to five Great Books students, the artists sometimes felt overwhelmed in sufficiently and accurately meeting the group鈥檚 expectations. This is where Batcheller stepped in to teach the young painters how to form healthy professional boundaries when commissioned by clients to create art.

Great Books and art students discuss their collaborative visions.

鈥淚 encouraged my students to not suddenly become different art makers than they had already been in the context of the class,鈥� she shares. 鈥淵es, try new techniques, but don鈥檛 all of a sudden become this type of art-maker when you were always that kind of art-maker, just to suit the many requests from the group.鈥�

She also gave her students permission to be uniquely themselves, and to push forward with what they felt was most important as far as conveying each specific scene with visual imagery. 鈥淣avigating those interpersonal skills was huge. That鈥檚 something that we navigate in the workplace on a daily basis, so that was pretty important,鈥� Batcheller says.

Sarah Lindsley
Divining Milton: Satan Gives Birth to Sin Paradise Lost II: 635-808

These techniques impressed Great Books student Kylie Owens, who was so astounded by the artist鈥檚 painting that she felt compelled to revisit Paradise Lost.

鈥淪ometimes with texts like that, it鈥檚 difficult to visualize things,鈥� the theatre major admits. 鈥淚t goes to show how the classics cross all borders with all disciplines and all studies鈥攅veryone can relate to them in some way,鈥� she says.

Such has certainly been the case for Great Books student Callaghan McDonough, who remembers the experience as intellectually challenging. 鈥淚t was definitely more of an emotional investment than the typical essay, because we had to analyze the visceral impact the scene had on us, and then communicate how that scene might be visually represented, in order that it might have the same effect on the viewer as the author's words initially had on us,鈥� he explains.

Once the Great Books students and artists agreed on the final presentation of the paintings, Batcheller organized a pop-up exhibition in Payson library. She then photographed the artworks and Rodeheffer submitted them for publication in the third volume of the undergraduate Great Books journal Athena鈥檚 Gate.

Rodeheffer believes that this collaborative project represents an appropriate and timely direction that humanities courses should consider.

As she explains, 鈥淲e need to move in the direction of collaborating with disciplines in the arts and sciences and showing the ways in which literature, history, and philosophy remain vital to this generation of students.鈥�