Arnaut Daniel: one of the most renowned troubadour poets of the Middle Ages, a lusty writer of extreme difficulty, an erotic master, and the final penitent we meet on Mount Purgatory. He’s in the flames that refine the lustful. And he speaks in his own Provençal, using a triplicate rhyme that sums up the work of penance on Mount Purgatory.
Read MoreHaving found his poetic father, Guido Guinizzelli, and having declared that Guinizzelli’s poetry will last as long as modern custom allows, our pilgrim, Dante, now hears Guinizzelli morph the “sweetness” of this new style into “truth” before offering a beautiful example of that style . . . which the poet Dante then uses to finish their conversation.
Read MoreDante is aghast when Guido Guinizzelli identifies himself. This poet from one generation before is Dante’s poetic father. The pilgrim is at first so amazed that he gets lost in a crabbed classical simile. But he and Guinizzelli eventually straight things out and come down to the sweet, new, clear style for which Dante wants to be known.
Read MoreGuido Guinizzelli steps out to identify himself as our spokesperson for the penitent lustful. He answers the pilgrim Dante’s questions about who is on the seventh terrace of Mount Purgatory with a dense net of classical allusions and the creation of new words, the best work a poet can do in Dante’s theory of poetry.
Read MoreWe may have known who the penitents in the fires of the seventh terrace of Purgatory are, but our pilgrim certainly doesn’t know! He can only get out of his confusion by pulling out a manuscript, ruling the paper, and getting ready to write his way into the revelation.
Read MoreThe pilgrim can’t answer the question for why he’s in Purgatory while in his corporeal body because he’s interrupted by a new group of penitents. Moving in the opposite direction to anyone on the mountain, these are the homosexuals, placed right at the end of the climb to heaven. Love has truly moved the fence in Dante’s understanding of the world.
Read MoreAs Dante the pilgrim walks along the narrow path between the flames of lust and the drop into the abyss on the seventh terrace of Mount Purgatory, his shadow makes the flames more colorful, about the way a poet in the troubadour tradition always makes the flames of lust glow hotter.
Read MoreA read-through of PURGATORIO, Cantos XXV - XXVII, the final terrace of Mount Purgatory where the lustful do their penance in the flames. We find out more about Dante’s poetics, we hear a part of COMEDY actually in medieval Provencal, and we discover the great change in our pilgrim’s character after he walks out of the fire.
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