Beatrice, Changed; Dante, Panicked; And The Reader, De-centered: PURGATORIO, Canto XXXII, Lines 70 - 108
Walking With Dante4 Maalis

Beatrice, Changed; Dante, Panicked; And The Reader, De-centered: PURGATORIO, Canto XXXII, Lines 70 - 108

Dante wakes back up from his unexpected sleep to find that the grand parade is heading off into the forest (or maybe the skies). He's in a panic that Beatrice has left, too, although the young woman of Eden comforts him and shows her now humble place under the renewed tree.

Meanwhile, we readers are equally panicked . . . or at least de-centered, as we try to make sense of complicated similes and oblique symbolic meanings. COMEDY is getting more complex by the line. It's a game of interpretation we've been preparing to play since INFERNO, Canto I.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at the passage just before the giant apocalyptic vision of PURGATORIO, Canto XXXII.

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Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:21] My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXXII, Lines 70 - 108. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please find the entry for this episode on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[04:53] Four (or maybe five) interwoven Biblical references in the opening twelve lines of this passage (or the opening four tercets).

[13:25] The interweaving of textuality to de-center the reader by pushing meaning further into mystery.

[15:52] Dante's awakening to panic and then obeisance.

[19:43] The complex meaning of Beatrice's changed position under the tree.

[25:10] Dante's Roman hopes for heaven.

[26:47] A flourish of the medieval high rhetorical style at the end of the passage.

[28:53] Writing as awakening and return.

[31:23] Rereading this passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXXII, lines 70 - 108.

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