After Beatrice’s final discourse in PURGATORIO, Dante admits he has images stamped on his brain from what he’s seen and heard although he doesn’t understand much of what she means. Beatrice then launches into a condemnation of whatever school Dante has followed, before making a promise for greater clarity ahead.
Read MoreThe conclusion of Beatrice’s monologue at the end of PURGATORIO: fun calculations about Limbo, badly mixed metaphors, theories of writing and reading, as well as the reshaping of this journey across the known universe from a standard pilgrimage to a crusade.
Read MoreBeatrice continues her discourse in canto XXXIII at the top of Mount Purgatory by offering Dante both a job (to be her scribe) and a theory of his own craft (take notes, then wait to write). Along the way, Dante himself makes a rare mistake, a misquote from Ovid that lasted centuries in commentary before it was corrected.
Read MoreAfter some banter over the mannerly way to converse with Beatrice, she sets into the final discourse of PURGATORIO: her cryptic and apocalyptic discussion of the chariot, the times, and the coming of “five hundred ten and five, God’s messenger.” Her discourse is meant to prepare us for the elliptical and stylized language of PARADISO, just ahead of us.
Read MoreAfter the apocalyptic vision of Canto XXXII, after the giant has dragged the chariot and the whore into the woods of Eden, Beatrice and the seven ladies exchange Latin quotations from the Bible, then Beatrice turns to Dante and accepts him as her walking companion in the terrestrial Paradise.
Read MoreThe second episode on the apocalyptic vision that ends PURGATORIO, Canto XXXII. In this episode, we’ll go over the now-standard reading, popularized by the rationalist, Anglo-American readers of COMEDY. We’ll talk about cracks and rifts in that interpretation. And we’ll discuss ways the vision itself may finally be “uninterpretable.”
Read MoreDante has a vision of the catastrophic end of the grand chariot and perhaps even one of the original trees of Eden, all while standing to the side on the grassy margin with Statius and perhaps the young woman guardian of Eden nearby. This vision is complex and demands that its readers come into the interpretive space to make meaning.
Read MoreDante wakes up from his quick nap to a panic that Beatrice has left with the griffin and the parade of revelation. Instead, the young woman of Eden shows him Beatrice’s new position: seated on the roots under the renewed tree. In this passage just before the grand apocalyptic vision, Dante de-centers his readers and forces them into complex games of meaning.
Read MoreThe griffin pulls the chariot (or cart) up to the denuded tree in the Garden of Eden. As the pole gets attached to the tree, the tree itself regenerates . . . and our pilgrim, Dante, falls asleep. The mysteries deepen in this passage before the final apocalyptic vision of PURGATORIO, giving the reader a clue into the complexities that lie just ahead.
Read MoreThe griffin, its chariot (or cart), and Beatrice arrive with Dante, Statius, and the beautiful lady at the foot of a denuded tree, bare branches with no fruit available. The allegories and symbolism become thicker and more complex at every step. Which tree in Eden? Why does Beatrice descend? What does the griffin mean by his one and only line in COMEDY?
Read MoreFace to face with Beatrice, the pilgrim Dante either thinks he’s ready for more revelation or is still caught in his old physical attraction for his beloved ten years after her death. But how can Dante be in the wrong after Lethe? And why does the parade of revelation, the embodiment of the church militant, seem to be in retreat? And what does that griffin symbolize?
Read MoreRather than a passage by passage analysis of the final two cantos of PURGATORIO, sit back and enjoy a read-through of my loose translation of the climax of this second canticle in Dante’s masterpiece, COMEDY. We come to the densest and most difficult passages yet in the poem. Let’s get ready for more analysis ahead.
Read MoreAt long last, Beatrice and Dante are face to face. We’ve anticipated this moment since INFERNO, Canto II, when Beatrice made her first appearance in COMEDY. They’re silent in this complicated scene as the women around the chariot urge them closer and press Beatrice to reveal her hidden beauty: her mouth.
Read MoreBeatrice and the griffin: they’re deeply connected, so much so that its true nature is only found in the reflection in her eyes. Yet both have a complex, even ambiguous symbolism that may make them both the allegories of more than one concept. They both are double-natured in their own ways.
Read MoreAwakened from his third fainting spell, Dante is pulled through the river Lethe by the young woman who welcomed him and his poets to the Garden of Eden. She forcefully dunks his head into the water, then places him among the four women dancing on the left side of the chariot around Beatrice.
Read MoreBeatrice has finished her work, laying out how the pilgrim Dante has failed in his poetic craft. He then is left to his final crack-up on the road to contrition—that is, his third fainting spell in COMEDY. He collapses with Beatrice much as he does with Francesca in INFERNO’s circle of lust . . . except Beatrice’s intent is far different from Francesca’s.
Read MoreBeatrice finishes her second salvo at Dante with a master class in a high, elevated style. She also carries on with her balancing act between literal and metaphoric speech. In all these ways, she is directing both the pilgrim to the journey ahead and the poet to the sort of poetry he will have to craft to explain the PARADISO experience.
Read MoreEver since INFERNO, Canto I, we’ve wondered exactly why Dante got lost in that dark wood. Here, at the top of Purgatory, Beatrice finally brings out his full confession. It was all about her. Or about what he wrote. Or about another woman. Or maybe all of them at once.
Read MoreWailing, Dante is silent in the face of Beatrice’s indictment. She is impatient to hear his confession. But she’s also done the unthinkable: she’s robbed a poet of his words. He’s left speechless in front of her . . . about the way he was in front of Francesca back in INFERNO.
Read MoreBeatrice concludes her first indictment of Dante, our pilgrim, by telling him that he has missed the proper subject matter for this talent all along: herself and the damned. In so doing, she brings him to the place where he, the artist, can begin to forgive his own failings in his craft.
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