PURGATORIO, Episode 3. Of A Poet, His Hubris, And His Doubts: PURGATORIO, Canto I, Lines 1 - 12

Dante opens PURGATORIO with himself, with the poet, rather than with the pilgrim, his fictional alter ego (who gets the opening bits of INFERNO). Dante expresses his Christian hopes as well as his potentially heterodox theology on the human will. And he offers us a glimpse of both his hubris and his doubts with his third invocation to the muses in COMEDY.

Mark ScarbroughMarch 19, 2023 Comments

PURGATORIO, Episode 2. The Shores Of Purgatory: Introducing PURGATORIO, Cantos 1 - 2

We’ve begun our exploration of Dante’s mountain of Purgatory. A mountain in more than one way! As we stand on the shores, we’ll read the first two cantos in my English translation, then I’ll raise six initial, interpretive questions that we can answer over the course of breaking these cantos into smaller sections.

Here are the first nine cantos of PURGATORIO, from the shores of the mountain up to its proper gate, including all those who have to wait to get inside and the pilgrim’s first dream in the poem. The episodes are in reverse order, so scroll through to find the one you want.