The conversation between the pilgrim Dante and Forese Donati may be one of the most significant in COMEDY. It’s not only incredibly structured, it also moves from friendship to poetic craft and then out into social exaltation. It’s got three balanced prophecies and it may well be the poet’s attempt to find at long last some sort of personal reconciliation with the Donati clan.
Read MoreForese Donati has finished his screed against Florentine women and is ready to hear how the pilgrim Dante got so far up Mount Purgatory while still in the flesh. Dante obliges and also renegotiates the terms of the opening and even the plot of COMEDY as we near the climax of the second canticle, of PURGATORIO.
Read MoreForese Donati launches into his screed against Florentine women by reaffirming his love for his wife, Nella. He vaults into the high style of a prophetic voice, referencing prophecies from Isaiah, all while using the vernacular Florentine to offer a lyrical subtext to his stern (and ultimately false) condemnation.
Read MoreDante the pilgrim and his rival/friend/fellow poet Forese Donati go on talking about suffering and the nature of the ascent up the mountain. In doing so, they must speak about Forese’s wife, Nella. Dante has previously insulted her in the sonnet rivalry. Now, she’s a heroic figure who nonetheless brings us back to the problem of stating the higher truths in the vernacular.
Read MoreDante and Forese, friends and poetic rivals, continue their conversation on the sixth terrace of Mount Purgatory among the emaciated, skeletal gluttons. Forese’s suffering is clear and present, which makes them both pause on the central crux of being human: how to interpret the pain we feel.
Read MoreDante the poet muddies his text with increasingly opaque literary references until finally the pilgrim encounters a fellow, contemporary vernacular poet, not someone associated with the high style, but instead Forese Donati, a guy known for his vulgar, funny, hip, and insulting sonnets.
Read MoreOur pilgrim is still marveling at the mystical tree on the sixth terrace of Mount Purgatory—he has to be goaded on by Virgil, his “more than father.” As they walk along the terrace, they’re soon overtaken by skeletal, cadaverous penitents who find that the pilgrim himself is a source of marvel.
Read MoreA read-through of Purgatorio, Cantos XXII, XXIII, and XXIV. A rough translation before we break it into smaller parts for deeper analysis. The ascent from the fifth terrace of avarice (and we learn, another sin) to the sixth terrace of gluttony: an arboretum with hollow, wasted souls purging their love of wine and food.
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