PURGATORIO, Episode 177. Going In Circles To Go Forward: PURGATORIO, Canto XXII, Lines 115 - 129

Our pilgrim, Dante, arrives on the sixth, empty terrace of Mount Purgatory without a lot of fanfare. Instead, Statius and Virgil go ahead of him and talk about the craft of poetry. The passage is caught in the essential structural issue (and thematic one, too!) of COMEDY: circularity and linearity, fused into one state of being.

Read More

PURGATORIO, Episode 176. Placing And Misplacing Your Classical Ancestors: PURGATORIO, Canto XXII, Lines 94 - 114

Virgil and Statius reconstruct limbo. The sighs from that first circle of hell are transferred from the damned to the poet Dante (and to his reader). And the entire catalogue of the lost comes down to a final irony: Manto, lost in Dante’s own poem, misplaced and reassigned, a final misreading and misquotation in a canto full of them.

Read More

PURGATORIO, Episode 175. Statius, The Closeted Christian: PURGATORIO, Canto XXII, Lines 76 - 93

Virgil finally gets to hear the story of Statius’s conversion. But for Statius to tell it, Dante the poet must make some concessions to the historical record, must account for the fact that Statius’s epic is dedicated to a Roman emperor, and must offer a compelling narrative vision . . . that devolves into the text as text, rather than as story.

Read More

PURGATORIO, Episode 174. Virgil, The Damned Christian Missionary: PURGATORIO, Canto XXII, Lines 55 - 74

Virgil wants to know how Statius could have become a Christian since there’s no evidence of faith in his poetry about Thebes. Statius replies that it’s through Virgil’s poetry that he both became a poet and became a Christian. Damned Virgil lights the path to redemption.

Read More

PURGATORIO, Episode 172. The Path To God Is Lined With Misquoted, Misinterpreted Texts: PURGATORIO, Canto XXII, Lines 25 - 54

Statius answers Virgil’s question: He wasn’t guilty of avarice, as Virgil imagined. Statius spent all his money. And he learned the error of his ways when he interpreted a passage from Virgil’s AENEID . . . or rather, when he misquoted and misinterpreted the passage. We have to come to the quagmire of interpretation—and Dante’s hope for classical texts.

Read More

PURGATORIO, Episode 171. Virgil Offers The First Of Many Classical Misreadings: PURGATORIO, Canto XXII, Lines 1 - 24

Dante the pilgrim begins his climb to the sixth terrace of Mount Purgatory blinded and behind his two guides, Virgil and Statius. The drama of the pilgrim’s blindness is superseded by Virgil’s curiosity about Statius . . . complete with Virgil’s own misquotation of Francesca from INFERNO, Canto V.

Read More

PURGATORIO, Episode 170. A Read-Through Of PURGATORIO, Cantos XXII - XXIV

A 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.

Read More

PURGATORIO, Episode 169. Caught Between Two Poets: PURGATORIO, Canto XXI, Lines 103 - 136

In a very human and funny scene, Dante the pilgrim is caught between two poetic mentors, Statius and Virgil. It’s a battle of the wills . . . inside of Dante, who is finding that his emotions are more fundamental even than his will, all in a canto that is a hymn to the human will and that ends in the same spot another canto ended.

Read More

PURGATORIO, Episode 168. The Audacity Of Statius: PURGATORIO, Canto XXI, Lines 76 - 102

The unknown soul finally names himself: Statius, the epic Roman poet, a major influence on COMEDY, and a full-on shock. How could a pagan Roman poet end up on Mount Purgatory, headed to heaven? And how can this poet find himself face to face with his own poetic inspiration and apparently the bearer of God’s revelation: the damned Virgil.

Read More

PURGATORIO, Episode 67. A Dream Of Classical Sex And Sorrows: PURGATORIO, Canto IX, Lines 13 - 42

Dante dreams his way to the gate of Purgatory using three classical images about “unnatural” or “unrefined” love, while burning up with sexual ecstasy in the talons of the great eagle from Zeus and becomes Ganymede, the cupbearer to the gods. A wild (and troubling) ride for a Christian poet, to say the least.

Read More