3.5This is the most difficult book I've ever read. And I still think Inferno is the most enjoyable part. Idk people, I like the damned.

People warned me that Purgatorio and Paradiso are rough. And since I already struggled with Inferno, everyone was sure that I was gonna absolutely loathe the other cantiche as well. To everyone's surprise (including my own!), I really really loved Purgatorio. I found it so much more accessible and engaging than its predecessor because it had a clear structure throughout, and in addition to that, I loved learning about the organisation of Mount Purgatory, especially the seven deadly sins, their c...

For the Celebrity Death Match Review Tournament, The Complete Tales and Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh versus The Divine ComedyMy propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.- Ludwig WittgensteinOne by one, all the other animals had left the Grea...

Beautiful! I need to read it a few more times to really own it, though. It is filled with music and smiles and light.

Paradiso is the third and final part of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri which describes Dante's version of Paradise. Dante's Paradise is influenced by medieval views on Cosmology. Accordingly, it has nine concentric spheres that surround the earth. Above the spheres is the Empyrean which is where God resides. In Paradiso, Dante journeys through Paradise. Here his guide is Beatrice. Virgil is no longer there and I missed dear old Virgil who guided Dante through the Inferno and Purgatorio. U

"Faith is the substance of the things we hope for, And evidence of those that are not seen"I have nothing but admiration for Dante. Wow! That was such a great ending for an iconic masterpiece. Almost all throughout the book, our narrator runs out of words to describe the magnificence of the scenes before him. Even with subtle guides of visualization, I liked how the rest of the magic was up to the reader's mind. After reading a certain line or canto, I would find myself blankly staring at the wa...

Paradise: Too bright and too noisy. Not my choice for a good retirement spot.I have decided to settle for the Earthly Paradise atop Purgatory, with its meadows, light music and pleasant breeze. Seems like the best long term investment at the end of this cosmic tour.

54. Paradiso by Dante Alighieritranslation and notes: Jean Hollander & Robert Hollanderpublished: 1320, translation 2007format: 956-page Paperback, with original Italian, translation and notesacquired: September 2019read: Sep 1 – Nov 9time reading: 53 hr 53 min, 3.4 min/pagerating: 5locations: 😇about the author: Florentine poet, c. 1265 – 1321A very different feel to this than Inferno or Purgatorio. There is a lot less narrative, and especially a lot less personal narrative. The short entertaini...

Having made his way through Hell and Purgatory, Dante finally reaches Heaven in this third part of the Divine Comedy. There's more philosophy here and it's not as much of a personal shit list, what with this being Heaven, but Dante still manages to get a few digs in. One of the things I've found interesting about all three of these books is how people in Dante's time (assuming his beliefs are representative of the general populace, which they may not be) adhered to Christianity while still seemi...

The old prose translation of Dante by Charles Eliot Norton is the BEST - for it gives us the Logic behind all his great Poetry. If you want to understand what Dante MEANS, especially in his medieval physics, history and theology, LOOK NO FURTHER!So what is Dante really saying?What it takes for a medieval man to gain Heaven at his life’s close, Dante says, is the constant practice of the Seven Cardinal Virtues. And this virtue must be crowned - as by the watchful and life-giving Paraclete - by th...

As much as you have to admire Dante for his knowledge spanning over so many fields - philosophy, cosmology, history, theology, mythology, poets, politics, whatever is the word for the science of torture (Dante should be called father of that science), about local crimes etc - one can see why Borges considered it the best thing ever written; still I didn't particularly like Paradiso. It is mostly saintly souls in large groups moving in different shapes. And despite all those souls telling us ever...

The journey with Dante and his spiritual guides through the afterlife concludes appropriately with Paradiso. Written around 1319 to just before he died in 1321, it is his ultimate vision of God and Heaven and a wild ride. The pace is much faster - or at least it seemed to me - than Inferno and Purgatorio and he and Beatrice fly through the Heavenly Sphere (yes, you need a lot of suspension of disbelief and lots of Scholastic philosophy - even Aquinas himself is a tourguide at one point), so it i...

I'm only reading the poems, and the preceding brief clarifying outlines, this first time through. I find the long critical sections to be almost wholly poem killing. I am not a Christian, so my view is literary and anthropological. All literature for me, the compelling stuff, delineates a lost or wholly imagined world or parallel sphere. (J.G. Ballard's off-beat work comes to mind.) The Divine Comedy wonderfully creates just such an imagined existence. It is, in fact, a dystopia, very ancient an...

Something about this passage gets me. I always come back to it. Sad and beautiful. Dante asks a woman in the lowest rung of Paradise - the moon - if she doesn't hanker to go higher: "A smile at thisLightened her eyes, and those who crowded nearSmiled with her. Then she spoke, and all the blissOf Love's first flame, it seemed, was hers to sing,She was so joyous in her answering."Brother, the quality of our Love doth stillThe impulse of rebellion; all our willBeing God's only. Here we rest content...

Dante's journey to enlightenment ends with Paradiso.It was my least favourite part to be honest. I had hard time getting through the book and since I'm not into philosophy I didn't enjoy it as much. However, I'm glad I decided to read The Divine Comedy because, as a whole, it was worth it.

Paradiso = Paradise = Heaven (La Divina Commedia #3), Dante AlighieriParadiso is the third and final part of Dante's Divine Comedy, following the Inferno and the Purgatorio. It is an allegory telling of Dante's journey through Heaven, guided by Beatrice, who symbolizes theology. In the poem, Paradise is depicted as a series of concentric spheres surrounding the Earth, consisting of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Fixed Stars, ... It was written in the early 14th cen...

"What little I recall is to be told,from this point on, in words more weak than those of one whose infant tongue still bathes at the breast." Canto XXXIIINote: When your eyes glaze over at any point while reading this review, simply skip ahead to the solid line __________. Dante wrote his 'Divine Comedy' as a didactic poem. He wanted to teach his fellow citizens about what could await them after death - Inferno; Purgatorio; Paradiso. He also wanted to teach a lesson in Faith and Morals. He wrote...

“Infinite order rules in this domain.Mere accidence can no more enter inthan hunger can, or thirst, or grief, or pain.” “Now comes this man who from the final pitof the universe up to this height has seen,one by one, the three lives of the spirit.” I have been reviewing each canto separately, but that is not how the poem was constructed. Dante planned his timeless masterpiece to the last detail, leaving nothing to chance or improvization. His supreme deity is one of order and meaning, and only

130th book of the year. Artist for this review is, again, for the last time, French artist Gustave Doré.I have no idea what to rate this as there is so much to unpack and I'm just a lowly student (not even a student anymore). Without notes there's no way that I could possibly read or understand this. I found myself extremely grateful that I studied Classical Civilisation once again and knew a good number of the names Dante was dropping in regards to the Roman Empire, but the religious names, the...