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.
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 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 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!
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