Paradise
Questions
The most common questions about Paradise, answered from the canticle.
- What is the summary of Dante's Paradise?Paradise, the third canticle of Dante Alighieri's Comedy, tells how Dante leaves the summit of Purgatory with Beatrice, climbs through the nine...
- What is Dante's Paradise about?Paradise is about what a man can see and what he can say of what he saw. The canticle does not ask what each soul deserves. It asks how far sight can...
- How is Dante's Paradise organized?Paradise has 33 cantos in chain-rhymed tercets, like the other two canticles, and is organized into ten heavens: the nine concentric heavens of...
- What is the difference between Paradise and the other two canticles of the Comedy?The subject matter changes. In the Inferno and in the Purgatory there is body, blood, and weight, characters who tell their own story, and...
- Who is Beatrice in Dante's Paradise?Beatrice is Dante's guide in Paradise, from the first canto to XXXI. It was she who sent Virgil to meet him in the Inferno and who received him at...
- Why does Bernard replace Beatrice at the end of Dante's Paradise?Because Beatrice herself sent him. In canto XXXI Dante turns to ask her the things he had left hanging and sees, in her place, an old man with a...
- Who is Saint Bernard in Dante's Paradise?Saint Bernard is the guide who replaces Beatrice in the Empyrean, in canto XXXI, and leads Dante to the end of the poem. The text presents him as an...
- Who is Piccarda in Dante's Paradise?Piccarda Donati is the first soul Dante speaks with in Paradise, in canto III, in the heaven of the Moon, the lowest. She was a nun, she followed the...
- Who is Justinian in Dante's Paradise?Justinian is the emperor who speaks the whole of canto VI, in the heaven of Mercury, where those who acted for honor and fame are. He speaks without...
- Who is Cacciaguida, and what does he say about Dante's exile?Cacciaguida is Dante's great-great-grandfather, who receives him in the heaven of Mars, among those who fought for the faith. He runs from the cross...
- Why does Thomas Aquinas praise Saint Francis and Bonaventure praise Saint Dominic, in Paradise?Because the poem gives each founder the voice of a member of the rival order. In the Sun, Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican, spends canto XI telling the...
- What does the Eagle answer about the man born on the banks of the Indus, in Paradise?She answers with a question, not with an explanation. In canto XIX the Eagle, formed by the souls of the just, repeats Dante's doubt: a man is born...
- What is the final vision of Dante's Paradise like?The final vision is described above all by what is missing. In canto XXXIII, after Bernard's prayer and Mary's consent in her eyes, Dante looks at...
- What is the most famous line in Dante's Paradise?The most quoted is Piccarda's, in canto III: "and in his will is our peace: it is the sea toward which all that he creates and all that nature makes...
- Is Dante's Paradise hard to read?It is, and it is the hardest canticle of the Comedy, and also the least remembered. There is hardly any plot, the body and blood of the Inferno give...
- How many pages does Dante's Paradise have?Paradise has 33 cantos and 4,758 lines, which comes to around 125 pages in an ordinary edition; counting by the words of the original gives about...