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 the summit of Purgatory, and in the third canticle she climbs with him from heaven to heaven, explaining what they see. Tradition identifies her with Beatrice Portinari, the Florentine woman Dante loved; within the poem she is a concrete character, with a voice, a smile, and a method.
Beatrice teaches through argument and through example, and she often answers before the question has taken shape. In canto I she corrects Dante's illusion that he is still on earth and explains the ascent as natural order; in canto II she refutes what he thinks about the spots on the Moon; in canto XIV she speaks for him about the resurrection of bodies. Her light measures grace: in Saturn she does not laugh, because laughter would reduce him to ash, and in canto XXIII she invites him to look at her face to face, because now he can bear it.
She also points beyond herself. In canto XXIII she rebukes him for looking at her face and not at the garden that flowers under the rays of Christ. In canto XXX the poet gives up following her beauty in verse, and in canto XXXI she answers his prayer with a smile and returns to the fountain. It is Bernard who takes her place, at her request, and Dante sees her again on her throne, in the third circle counting from the highest rank.