Statius concludes his discourse on embryology by finally answering the pilgrim Dante’s question about how souls can take on material attributes in the afterlife . . . and by gently refining both Virgil’s unsatisfactory answers earlier in this canto and by gently correcting Virgil’s discussions of the souls in the afterlife in THE AENEID.
Read MoreStatius continues his discussion of human embryology, following the fetus through its various developmental stages until it finally forms a brain, the seat of rationality. At that point, the prime mover turns toward it and breathes a new spirit into it . . . to make it self-reflexive.
Read MoreDante asks his question about how immaterial shades can take on material properties. Virgil tries to give two answers, neither satisfactory. So he turns the lecture over to the redeemed Statius, who launches into a discussion of human digestion. Food is purified into blood, which then coagulates into a fetus.
Read MoreVirgil attempts to answer the pilgrim Dante’s question about how immaterial shades can take on material attributes (like growing thin on the sixth terrace of Mount Purgatory). Virgil tries two answers but ultimately has to give up and turn the discussion over to Statius as they ascend to the seventh terrace.
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.
Read MoreStatius and Virgil head out across the sixth terrace of Mount Purgatory. They’re stopped by an upside-down tree in the path. A voice in the tree warns them off, then admonishes them with examples of those who were moderate in their appetites . . . and the wonders of the classical age.
Read MoreOur 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 MoreVirgil 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 MoreVirgil 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 MoreVirgil 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 MoreStatius 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 MoreDante 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 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.
Read MoreIn 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 MoreThe 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 MoreDante 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.
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