Our next few weeks will be devoted to an amor somewhat less all-encompassing than that of Dante's Commedia . We'll be looking at O...

Top: Birth of Dionysus Below: Triumph of Dionysus ἢ ὥσπερ Σαπφώ, ὅτι τὸ ἀποθνῄσκειν κακόν· οἱ θεοὶ γὰρ οὕτω κεκρίκασιν· ἀπέ...

Ne la profonda e chiara sussistenza   de l'alto lume   parvermi tre giri   di tre colori e d'una contenenza;    e l'un ...

A while ago, our group began reading Dante's Paradiso aloud and discussing it -- the first post on this blog, entitled " A few not...

Two quick references to supplement our reading of Paradiso 33: In "Paradiso 33: Invisible Ink" , Teodolinda Barolini brilliantl...

προαιρεῖσθαί τε δεῖ ἀδύνατα εἰκότα μᾶλλον ἢ δυνατὰ ἀπίθανα What is convincing though impossible should always be preferred to what is p...

The arc of the Paradiso has been a movement from the particular to the universal, moving towards the primo amore -- the source of all Being...

Paradiso 32 comes across as dry and devoid of embellishment when compared with the cantos immediately preceding and the stunning final can...

By the standards of USian hero movies, Paradiso 32 ought to be the victory lap. Entering the stadium having passed every test, the Hollywo...

It's often remarked that the late canti of Paradiso are redolent with Virgilian echoes, prompting commentators to ponder why, since Vi...

(An interpolation - I do intend to get back to the question of parabasis in Paradiso 30 ) As noted previously , the final cantos of the ...