Dante's Paradiso, Introduction

At the Catholic Thought Book Club, we’re returning to the Divine Comedy, and reading the last cantica, Paradiso.  You’ll be seeing a number of posts on it in the next couple of months.  Here’s the introduction I provided to this last section.

As an introduction to Paradiso, let me say up front that this is the least familiar to me of the three canticles.  While I had read Inferno and Purgatorio several times each (perhaps as many as four times) I have only read Paradiso one and a half times.  Many years ago I read it through, and then a couple of years ago I got to just about half way.  I was going to finish it, but then our book club selected it as our long term read, and so I started over with Inferno again and realized I would read Paradisio through when we got to it. 

When we had last left Dante (the character, not the author) at the end of Purgatorio, he and Beatrice were in earthly paradise and had set their sights for the stars.  Dante had undergone contrition, confession, and absolution and was ready for the holiness of heaven.  This last cantica is the final part of Dante the pilgrim’s journey through the world of the dead, now through the world of those in heaven.  So what can we expect here?  In Inferno, the goal of the journey was to reach through a winding funnel the heart of hell and to Satan.  In Purgatorio the goal was to climb along the edge of a spiraling mountain and reach Beatrice.  In Paradisio the goal is to rise through the heavenly spheres to reach Empyrean, the heart of heaven, and to God.

Just as Inferno and Purgatorio are each constructed to have ten major sections, so too Paradisio contains ten sections.  Ten is for Dante the number of perfection, and likewise the entire Divine Comedy is constructed to have one hundred (ten times ten) cantos.  Each of the canticas—a cantica or in English canticle, is a major division, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso—contains thirty-three cantos, which are subdivisions to the cantica.  That accounts for ninety-nine, and the hundredth is the introductory canto just before Dante the character enters Inferno.  Perhaps this is rudimentary for those who have read along, but perhaps there is someone starting with us in Paradisio.  If so, I urge you to read the introductions I provided to Inferno and Purgatorio.  It’s not difficult to start here if you allow yourself time to understand what has gone on.

The ten sections of Paradiso consist of seven heavenly bodies (moon, Mercury, Venus, sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn), a section of consisting of an assemblage of stars, a section called the crystalline sphere from which God directly moves the universe, and finally Empyrean.  If Inferno was a downward slide allegorically suggesting the ease of sin, and Purgatorio was an upward climb allegorically suggesting the struggle of penance, then Paradiso is a rising allegorically suggesting the glory of salvation.  There is no effort in the rising.  Think of Dante and Beatrice, his guide for a good deal of Paradisio, as helium filled balloons being drawn toward God. 

In formulating the structure and nature of Paradiso, Dante was without doubt influenced by St. Paul when he talks of his mystical journey in Second Corinthians:

I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows—was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell. I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses.  (2 Cor 12:1-5)

Without getting into the exegesis of this passage, we see there are multiple heavens and that his body or soul (he does not know which) is lifted up to paradise.  And it is unclear to Dante too whether his journey through the heavens is bodily or not. 

The pilgrims (Dante and Beatrice) do make stops at each of the spheres where they do meet other souls, but I should make it clear, since many make this assumption, that the souls do not reside in these spheres.  In a way this is a break as an analogs to Inferno, where those souls reside forever in those circles, and to Purgatorio where the penitents make their way through the ledges of the mountain. In Paradisio the souls all reside in Empyrean with God but travel to the spheres to show Dante the variation of graces bestowed by God to people.  Those souls have some characteristic of their sphere of influence but are not integrated to it.  If they were, they would be separated from God.  Indeed, there integration in Empyrean suggests a beautiful integration into the Body of Christ.

Critics of Paradiso say that it is the least polished of the three canticas.  I have not noticed that.  If I have my timeline correct, Dante (the author) started writing the Commedia in 1308 and completed first drafts of Inferno and Purgatorio by 1313, writing them nearly in parallel.  He spent the next four or five years revising the first two canticas and planning Paradiso.  He started Paradisio in 1317 and finished shortly before his death in 1321.  It’s conceivable he would have polished up Paradisio if he had lived longer just as he did the first two.  But having perfected the style and technique in the first two canticas, which spanned nearly a decade, he would need less time and effort in putting down the final third.  If it’s not as polished, it’s pretty darn good.

Some readers consider Paradiso the least interesting of the three.  Perhaps it’s because it deals with theological issues more directly.  There are less characters, and the pace is slower and more contemplative.  Perhaps it’s also because there is less narrative tension in Paradisio.  Inferno builds narrative tension through the personal dangers facing the pilgrims.  Purgatorio builds narrative tension through the struggle of cleansing sin.  Paradisio seemingly doesn’t have a narrative means to build tension.  Its sole tension is built on the anticipation of seeing God. 

If Paradisio lacks tension, however, the sheer beauty of its imagery and content makes it the most exquisite.  I think of the three canticas in this way.  Inferno is the most imaginative.  Purgatorio is the most human.  Paradiso is the most sublime.  It is here in Paradiso that all the themes are knitted together and reach closure.  What has been left incomplete is completed; development reaches denouement; intonations arrive to closed cadences.  It is good to recall the three overarching themes of the Divine Comedy: Man must be civilly responsible, man must seek the fulfillment of his Christian faith, and that the poet should create in an effort to capture God’s divine beauty. It is Paradiso we find the highest achievement of civil governance, we find most attainment of holiness, and we find the Empyrean, the mystical rose that represents perfection of God’s creation and on which the entire Divine Comedy is meant to represent.

With that, let’s get to Paradiso.

As to a reading plan, I don’t want to push myself at five or six cantos per week as I did while reading Inferno and Purgatorio.  I was more familiar with those and I still fell behind.  I looked at the division of the cantos and found some reasonable breaks.  So I propose the following reading plan of eight weeks. 

27 Jan – 2 Feb, Cantos 1 – 5

3 Feb – 9 Feb, Cantos 6 – 9

10 Feb – 16 Feb, Cantos 10 – 14

17 Feb – 23 Feb, Cantos 15 – 18

24 Feb – 2 Mar, Cantos 19 – 22

3 Mar – 9 Mar, Cantos 23 – 27

10 Mar – 16 Mar, Cantos 28 – 30

17 Mar – 23 Mar, Cantos 31 – 33

These are the discussion weeks, so the read prior is the time allotted to read them.  So you should start reading now.  Some weeks we have five cantos to read, some four, the last two weeks three cantos each.  This should give us a leisurely pace to digest the poetry.  I encourage you to read and post your comments.  If there is a particular passage that is giving you trouble, please ask and I will do my best to explain it.  As you can tell from my discussions of Inferno and Purgatorio, I love the Divine Comedy.  It’s the greatest work of literature ever written.

[We're already a week behind that schedule I put together.  This is a work I don't want to rush.]