Go Home: PARADISO, Canto II, Lines 1 - 18

Our poet steps out of the shadows with an important message: "Go home."

Because PARADISO is hard. Because we might get lost. Because we're not prepared.

The stark address to all readers--or perhaps to a much more limited set of specialty readers--that opens Canto II is one of the most unusual moments in COMEDY. When does an author ever warn his readers to stay away?

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we attempt to find a way survive with the other Argonauts as our Jason begins to plow his own field.

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

[01:04] My English translation of PARADISO, Canto II, lines 1 - 18. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment about this episode, please find its entry on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[02:41] Introductory remarks: Don't skip this canto but don't be too optimistic.

[05:10] The rhetoric of the new: PARADISO is not Virgil, not Statius, not the Apocalypse of St John, not PURGATORIO, not INFERNO, and not the CONVIVIO.

[10:08] The bread of angels: the Eucharist, theological study, or something less well defined?

[12:11] Jason, the Argonauts, and the rewriting of Ovid's METAMORPHOSIS.

[15:25] An address to any reader or an address to a more limited audience, like fellow poets?

[19:41] The grace of partial understanding with metonymies.

[23:19] Rereading the passage: PARADISO, Canto II, lines 1 - 18.

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