A (sort of?) short summary of PURGATORIO, Cantos I through XVII. To see the imaginative sweep. To remember where we’ve been. And to set us up for the questions ahead, both in the remainder of PURGATORIO and indeed on into PARADISO.
Read MoreVirgil concludes his central discourse on love—the center of both PURGATORIO and indeed COMEDY as a whole—on a strangely ambiguous note. After so much certainty about how humans act and why the afterlife is set up as it is, he ends by saying, “I just don’t know”—a wildly discordant note amid so much “truth.”
Read MoreVirgil continues his discourse on love, the central discourse in Dante’s COMEDY. Virgil explains love as the basis of human behavior, using reasoning from both Aquinas and Aristotle. His understanding of ethics forms the basis of Purgatory itself and perfectly fits Dante’s ultimate vision that desire drives us to God.
Read MoreVirgil opens the central discourse of Dante’s COMEDY with his thesis on love: it’s the seed of all human action, good or bad. He then parses that thesis with scholastic reasoning, only to repeat the claim and come to rest at the conclusion. You’re in heaven or hell because of love!
Read MoreDante and Virgil have reached the fourth terrace of Purgatory proper, the spot where the slothful race around to purge their sin. But before we see the runners, Virgil treats the pilgrim (and us) to the central discourse of COMEDY: all human actions are rooted in love. Here’s a read-through of PURGATORIO, Canto XVII, Line 73, to Canto XVIII, Line 145.
Read MoreDante the poet is playing with light: physical/metaphysical, revelatory/imaginary, sunrise/sunset, illuminating/concealing, angelic/cosmic. All this as COMEDY finds its center and PURGATORIO itself divides on a beautiful moment with the stars.
Read MoreDante the pilgrim has three more ecstatic visions as he gets ready to depart Purgatory's terrace of the angry. These visions are all about the destructive nature of excessive wrath and may give us an indication about why anger sits at the center of COMEDY: to mitigate Dante's own anger at Florence.
Read MoreDante walks into the light of the setting sun, leaving behind the smoke of the angry on Mount Purgatory's third terrace. Or is that their fog and mist? Or their clouds? Metaphoric space overlays metaphoric space as Dante begins to argue that the imagination is a mechanism of revelation.
Read MoreMarco of Lombardy's central discourse in COMEDY raises as many questions as it answers. What is Dante the poet up to with this long speech at the center of the poem. Let's read through the speech in its entirety, then ask six central questions that it raises without definite answers.
Read MoreThe angry penitent Marco of Lombardy continues his diagnosis of the world's ills. It should have two suns. It's got only one. And a sun that's not kosher. Or that perhaps cannot be kosher. So is the fault in us, as he claimed? Or is the corruption of the world a systemic problem?
Read MoreOn the third terrace of anger on Mount Purgatory and in a dark, dense smoke that permits no light, Marco of Lombardy continues his great discourse on free will with a surprising turn: a developmental hypothesis of the soul as a little girl.
Read MoreDante the pilgrim has asked the angry Marco of Lombardy the central question: why have things become so bad on earth? Marco's begins his answer with both exasperation and affection, then he launches into the heart of the matter: free will. The cause is in all of you.
Read MoreDante finds himself about to explode with doubt, thanks to Marco of Lombardy’s snark about the loss of valor in the bows of this world. Dante’s question is really about the nature and cause of evil. How did things get so bad? Let’s pick apart the pilgrim’s question before we get to Marco’s answer.
Read MoreDante the pilgrim encounters one of the wrathful penitents, Marco of Lombardy, an abrupt figure who stands at almost the exact center of COMEDY itself and is one of the most seminal characters in the poem, despite being a murky figure historically and maybe even personally.
Read MoreDante the pilgrim finds himself in such acrid, abrasive smoke that he can’t open his eyes and so must lean on Virgil to help him along the third terrace of Purgatory proper. The terrace of wrath has some of the poet’s most astute understandings of the human condition, including the notion that wrath is a “knot” that must be “solved.”
Read MoreA comparison and contrast of anger in both INFERNO and PURGATORIO, since it’s the first sin or human failing that is overtly found in both. A look at INFERNO, Cantos VII and VII, the circle of wrath vs. PURGATORIO, Cantos XV - XVII, the terrace of wrath. And a look at the cantos in PURGATORIO when read vertically with INFERNO, Cantos XV and XVI.
Read MoreA read-through of the third terrace of Purgatory proper: PURGATORIO, Canto XV, line 85 through Canto XVII, line 72. We’ll explore the smoky terrace of wrath or anger and hear the great speech of Marco of Lombardy which takes center place in the entire poem of COMEDY, all about the free will and the (surprising!) gender of the soul.
Read MoreDante the pilgrim has already had one ecstatic vision as he stepped onto the third terrace of Purgatory proper: the Virgin Mary’s return to Jerusalem to find Jesus after Passover. Now the pilgrim has two more visions in quick succession: Pisistratus and his wife, then the martyrdom of Stephen. These visions give us a clue as to Dante’s antidote for anger or wrath. It’s found on the face, in the countenance.
Read MoreDante and Virgil step onto the third terrace of Purgatory proper and the pilgrim is immediately struck with an ecstatic vision, the first such vision in a poem that itself may seem like one big ecstatic vision. This time, it’s Mary at the door, reprimanding Jesus and speaking in medieval Florentine.
Read MoreDante has heard Virgil’s explanation of the good becoming more, the more it’s shared (at least in heaven); yet Dante is not satisfied. So the pilgrim goes back for a second helping in this passage that continues Virgil’s lesson, turning the “good” into love and light, a move that will set us up for the grand revelations in the central cantos of COMEDY.
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