Posts tagged The terrace of lust
PURGATORIO, Episode 206. Sweet Becomes Truth Becomes Poetry: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, Lines 115 - 135

Having 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.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 205. The Love That Dares To Speak Its Name: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, Lines 94 - 114

Dante 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.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 204. Queenly Embeasting: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, Lines 67 - 93

Guido 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.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 202. The Episode In Which My Voice Breaks: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, Lines 25 - 48

The 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.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 201. Poets Make The Flames Of Lust More Colorful: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, Lines 1 - 24

As 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.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 200. The Flames And Abyss Of Lust: PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, Lines 109 - 139

Our pilgrim, Dante arrives on the seventh terrace of Mount Purgatory, a landscape full of flames. He, Virgil, and Statius must thread their way on a narrow path between the burning flames and the drop into the abyss off the side of the mountain . . . about as Dante the poet has to negotiate his relationship with Beatrice, the object of his own (lustful?) desire.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 199. The Corporeal Afterlife Of The Immaterial Soul: PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, Lines 79 - 108

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.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 198. The Breath Of Life, The Breath Of Poetry: PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, Lines 52 - 78

Statius 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.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 197. The Natural Process Of Life: PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, Lines 34 - 51

Dante 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.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 196. Virgil's Inadequacy on Full Display: PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, Lines 22 - 33

Virgil 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.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 195. Hesitancy Is The Deadly Sin Of Art: PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, Lines 1 - 21

As the pilgrim Dante, Virgil, and Statius begin to make their very fast ascent to the final terrace of Mount Purgatory, the pilgrim has a burning question about, yes, the cadaverous gluttons on the previous terrace but really about what’s been happening since almost the opening of COMEDY: How do unbodied shades experience physical sensations?

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PURGATORIO, Episode 194. A Read-Through Of PURGATORIO, Cantos XXV - XXVII

A 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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