Welcome to a Renegotiated Poem: PARADISO, Canto I, Lines 1 - 12

From its opening lines, it's clear that PARADISO is not like what has come before in COMEDY. Dante seems to be renegotiating the terms of his poem, establishing a new voice, a new model, and a new methodology for who he will proceed.

These opening lines are already packed with the sort of theological and philosophical stumbling blocks that make PARADISO a challenge, not just for a modern reader, but even for a medieval one.

The segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[02:42] My English translation of PARADISO, Canto I, lines 1 - 12. If you'd like to read along, just scroll down this page.

[03:56] The glory of the unmoved mover.

[09:39] The varying illuminations of the universe.

[13:27] The finite geography of heaven.

[15:54] A passing glance at the highest heaven.

[17:34] Dante and St. Paul, renegotiated.

[19:25] The interrelations of desire, intellect, memory, and potentially Beatrice.

[22:23] The memory of a memory--or knowing by not knowing, the core of the aphophatic revelation.

[29:37] The key paradox of the mystical experience: the cross-currents of the material and the immaterial.

[33:02] The resurrection of Brunetto Latini.

[35:25] Rereading the passage: PARADISO, Canto I, Lines 1 - 12.

My English translation of PARADISO, Canto I, Lines 1 – 12:

The glory of the one who moves everything

Pierces through the universe and shines

In one place more . . . and less in another place.

I have been in the heaven

That takes in more of his light and I have seen things

That one who comes down from there can neither know nor relate—

Because as it gets closer to its desire,

Our intellect is plunged to such depths

That memory cannot go there.

That said, all that I was able to make into a treasure

In my mind from the holy kingdom

Will now be the material for this song.