Plato and Beatrice, Together At Last: PARADISO, Canto IV, Lines 49 - 63
Beatrice continues her rectification of Dante's doubts by using a passage from Plato's TIMAEUS to turn her argument from accommodation to free will.This passage contains perhaps the heart of Beatrice'...
11 Okt 26min
Seeing Is (Almost) Believing: PARADISO, Canto IV, Lines 28 - 48
Beatrice begins to take apart the two questions (or doubts) that she has intuited the pilgrim Dante is holding in silence.She first takes on the one with more "poison" in this passage, in which she re...
4 Okt 28min
Paralyzed by Free Will: PARADISO, Canto IV, Lines 1 - 27
Piccarda may have vanished but questions remain. The pilgrim Dante is caught between them, unable to voice them.Beatrice to the rescue! She voices what he cannot say . . . or perhaps what he is afraid...
30 Sep 28min
The Expanding Community of Women in the Moon: PARADISO, Canto III, Lines 109 - 130
Piccarda Donati doesn’t stop her monologue with the cryptic line about her life after the convent. She turns to another figure in the lunar landscape: Constance I of Sicily, the Holy Roman Empress and...
23 Sep 23min
The Violent yet Elliptical End to Piccarda Donati's Story: PARADISO, Canto III, Lines 88 - 108
Piccarda Donati finally answers the question about who she is. She's given her name but not much else about her. In twelve lines (or four tercets) she brings her personal story to its violent yet elli...
20 Sep 27min
Piccarda Donati's Apotheosis of the Will: PARADISO, Canto III, Lines 58 - 87
Piccarda has confessed to her more humble place in the heavens. Our pilgrim Dante then wants to know if she wants more.Her answer leads her to an apotheosis of the will. Everything in the universe is ...
16 Sep 30min
The First Soul in Paradise, Piccarda Donati: PARADISO, Canto III, Lines 34 - 57
At long last, the first soul--or "shade"--steps forward in Paradise. She's Piccarda Donati, a figure we've already encountered once (maybe even twice) in COMEDY.Dante flatters her to speak and she beg...
13 Sep 29min
Catching Feelings in the Sensual Sphere of the Moon: PARADISO, Canto III, Lines 1 - 33
Dante is about to meet the first souls in Paradise, emerging from the liquid light of the moon.The poetry is lush and sensuous. The metaphors are complex and compounded. And Beatrice is a bit chilly, ...
9 Sep 28min
