Comments on Dante’s Paradiso

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From Facebook 10-24-2009 Leonard Sweet Wm Blake wanted to draw Dante’s Divine Comedy. Worked hard picturing hell, purgatory, sin: but when story turned to Paradise, lost interest

do peopele lose interst in gods story?

Michelle Bodle

What are their more artistic interpts. of – Heaven or Hell?

choosing life should always win
Blake died while working on the Paradiso, as did Dorothy Sayers. Maybe they were so thrilled with Dante’s descriptions that they decided to see for themselves?

Have had the joy of reading through the DC several times in several adaptations, including a post-modern graphic novel rendition by Birk&Sanders. It’s all fascinating, but over the years the Inferno has lost its attraction and the Purgatoria and the Paradiso have become more beautiful and meaningful.

did paradise paralyze his imagination?????
Yes, in a similar way Christians are still the same way. We love to hear the “horrible” stories of the sinner who was so terrible but now they’ve come to Jesus and it’s all ok.

Where are the great stories of God’s protection for those who never had to walk down that path. Or God’s protection to God’s own unwavering children during those rough, difficult times? We need more of those stories.

Makes sense to me. Pride revels in shame while despising grace.
@Daniel Tocchini – You have hit on a major theme of Dante’s for the Inferno. In addition, in Dante’s hell, there is no fellowship, no acknowledgment of one’s sin – only blame, anger, & violence toward other inhabitants of hell.
Reading this book was a major turning point in my own life.

The first time through, the Paradiso was the least interesting part, but thinking about it and rereading it has changed that. The Paradiso has become the best part. There are several factors driving that, age not being the least of them.

And, yes, the Paradiso paralysed Dante’s imagination, as the final canto will attest to.

@Don Warrington yes, the writing of Paradiso certainly did overwhelm Dante! But he is in good company; the Apostle John was overwhelmed by the Revelation, too. And even though the Paradiso is fiction and the Revelation is fact, both writers struggled to describe “what God has prepared for those who love him”1Cor 2:9
My college freshman English prof led us through Hell, and told us not to bother with the other two. I tried a couple of years ago, and just couldn’t make it through Paradise. I got sick of Beatrice, among other things.
Beatrice is the key inspiration to the entire DC. Basically, if there had been no Beatrice there would be no story. A good explanation of who she was in real life to Dante, and what she represents in the book, is a huge help to understanding many things in the Comedia.
Charles Williams (great friend of both Dorothy Sayers and CS Lewis) wrote a very thorough, thoughtful book on this subject in “The Figure of Beatrice,” published by Apocryphile Press, 1700 Shattuck Ave #81, Berkeley, CA 94709 http://www.apocryphile.org

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