The 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.
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