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Seeing Is (Almost) Believing: PARADISO, Canto IV, Lines 28 - 48
October 4, 2026 · 29 minBeatrice 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 reveals that the souls in the moon…
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Paralyzed by Free Will: PARADISO, Canto IV, Lines 1 - 27
September 30, 2026 · 29 minPiccarda 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 to say. She articulates his two…
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The Expanding Community of Women in the Moon: PARADISO, Canto III, Lines 109 - 130
September 23, 2026 · 24 minPiccarda 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 mother of Frederick II, the stupor…
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The Violent yet Elliptical End to Piccarda Donati's Story: PARADISO, Canto III, Lines 88 - 108
September 20, 2026 · 28 minPiccarda 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 elliptical conclusion. Before that the poet…
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Piccarda Donati's Apotheosis of the Will: PARADISO, Canto III, Lines 58 - 87
September 16, 2026 · 31 minPiccarda 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 in harmony; all dissonances are put…
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The First Soul in Paradise, Piccarda Donati: PARADISO, Canto III, Lines 34 - 57
September 13, 2026 · 29 minAt 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 begins, not with herself, but with some…
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Catching Feelings in the Sensual Sphere of the Moon: PARADISO, Canto III, Lines 1 - 33
September 9, 2026 · 28 minDante 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, full of Latinisms and a condescending…
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The Souls of the Universe: PARADISO, Canto II, Lines 127 - 148
September 6, 2026 · 27 minBeatrice concludes her explanation for moon spots by veering away from them specifically to talk about the nature of the universe. Blessed movers turn the spheres. Or perhaps inhabit them. Or are bound to them. Or maybe even give them…