The Journey Continues in 1300
The action is dated to Holy Week of 1300, the year of the Jubilee of Boniface VIII, and everything that happens after 1300 appears in the poem as prophecy in the mouths of the dead. In Paradise this reaches Dante's own exile, which his great-great-grandfather announces to him in Mars (canto XVII). Cunizza predicts punishment for the March of Treviso, and the commentators see in this facts later than the date of the journey (canto IX). Beatrice reserves in the rose an empty throne for the high Arrigo, whom tradition reads as Henry VII, the emperor who came down to Italy, and speaks of a prefect of the divine court whom current reading identifies as Clement V (canto XXX). Peter, denouncing the wolves in shepherd's clothing, speaks of Cahorsines and Gascons, whom current reading links to John XXII and Clement V (canto XXVII).
Florence, Italy, and the Two Powers
Dante was a White Guelph in a Florence divided between Whites and Blacks; in 1301 the Blacks took the city with Charles of Valois and banished the Whites, and he died in exile, in Ravenna. He believed the well-being of the world depended on Church and State in harmony, each in its own sphere, under a universal emperor. The canticle makes this conviction an argument in several places: Justinian tells the story of the Roman eagle to judge who appropriates the sign and who opposes it (canto VI); Folquet blames the florin and the Decretals for having led the flock astray (canto IX); Cacciaguida mourns ancient Florence and the division of its houses (canto XV, canto XVI); Peter accuses the papacy in person (canto XXVII); and the rose keeps a seat for the emperor who did not manage to set Italy right (canto XXX).
Politics is not an interval between the lessons. Whoever speaks it is, almost always, the dead and the saints, from Justinian to Peter, and that is what gives it weight: Dante does not attack in his own name, he hands the attack to those who have nothing left to lose. The text supports two readings of the effect. Peter changes the color of the sky, and either the poem shows that Paradise is not contemplative silence, or the outburst clashes with a place that should stand above resentment; there are readers who find it the point where the poet loses his grip.
How Paradise Is Built
The heavens are those of Ptolemaic cosmology, concentric around the Earth, and Dante crosses them without noticing the movement, always guided by Beatrice's gaze. In each one appears a group of souls, and what groups them is what they did or failed to do on earth:
- Moon (cantos I to V): those who broke a vow, with Piccarda and Constance.
- Mercury (cantos V to VII): those who acted for honor and fame, with Justinian.
- Venus (cantos VIII and IX): those who loved, with the spirit that tradition reads as Charles Martel, Cunizza, Folquet and Rahab, in the last heaven that the shadow of the Earth reaches.
- Sun (cantos X to XIV): the wise, in two crowns, with Thomas, Bonaventure and the light that tradition reads as Solomon.
- Mars (cantos XIV to XVIII): those who fought for the faith, in a cross of lights, with Cacciaguida.
- Jupiter (cantos XVIII to XX): the just, who form a sentence and an eagle.
- Saturn (cantos XXI and XXII): the contemplatives, on a golden ladder, with Peter Damian and Benedict.
- Fixed Stars (cantos XXII to XXVII): the triumph of Christ and of Mary and the examination of the three virtues, by Peter, James and John.
- Primum Mobile (cantos XXVII to XXIX): the point of light and the nine choirs of angels.
- Empyrean (cantos XXX to XXXIII): pure light, the rose, Bernard and the final vision.
The order of the heavens is not an order of happiness. Dante concludes, after hearing Piccarda, that everywhere in heaven is paradise, although grace does not rain in the same way (canto III); Justinian calls the difference in seats harmony (canto VI); and Bernard denies that there is chance anywhere in the rose (canto XXXII). The degrees exist, and the poem refuses to treat them as envy.
Who Guides, and How Far
Virgil stayed in Purgatory, and the guide is Beatrice, the concrete woman Dante loved, from the first canto to the XXXI. She teaches by argument and by example, and often answers before the question has taken shape (canto XIV). At the end, the guide who replaces her is Bernard, who says he was moved by her to fulfill Dante's desire (canto XXXI), and his last lesson is that the final step is asked of Mary, and is not won by beating one's own wings (canto XXXII, canto XXXIII). Virgil returns to the poem only by reference: Anchises and Aeneas measure the meeting with Cacciaguida (canto XV), Rhipeus comes from the Aeneid (canto XX), and the Sibyl of the leaves scattered on the wind closes the final vision (canto XXXIII).
Who speaks in each passage matters: the change of voice marks where a method ends, and Paradise has two. Beatrice argues, Bernard prays. Why Bernard, and not some other saint, the poem answers only with her will; for many readers this answer does not close the matter, and the text offers no other.
A Canticle That Declares Itself Incomplete
At several points the poem confesses its limit: memory does not keep pace with the intellect when it draws near what it desires (canto I), the poem must leap before the triumph of Christ (canto XXIII), the pen leaps and does not write Peter's canto (canto XXIV), and the seeing of the final vision is greater than the telling (canto XXXIII). Dante leaves each of these confessions with an image that is not the thing itself: the example of Glaucus, the clockwork of the wheel of the wise, the point of light, the volume that gathers what the universe unbinds.
The Inferno has a body, and the reader sees himself in it; Paradise is abstract, and the difficulty grows against expectation. It is the hardest canticle and the least remembered, and it is also where the poem places the incapacity to say as its own matter. Whoever enters expecting plot finds lessons, and whoever reads them looking for a description of heaven finds the account of what happens to whoever tries to see.
Saints Who Accuse Their Own House
Almost every praise in Paradise ends in an accusation made from within. Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican, praises Francis and ends by denouncing the flock of Dominic (canto XI); Bonaventure, a Franciscan, praises Dominic and condemns the extremes of his own order (canto XII); Peter Damian notes that the prelates of today cover even the horse with a cloak (canto XXI); Benedict sees the abbeys turn into dens (canto XXII); and Peter, the first pope, accuses whoever occupies his place (canto XXVII).
The method is the same in all five cases: whoever accuses knows what the institution was at the beginning, and that is why the judgment carries authority. The poet who says this is the same one who, in canto XIII, hears from Thomas that one does not judge before seeing, and the poem leaves the tension standing.