The Longfellow Translation
Prose Translation (David Bruce)
Dorothy Sayers/Barbara Reynolds translation (pdf)

Paradiso, Canto 1

Audio Recording coming soon

Summary

Dante, who is still in the Garden of Eden, has just drunk from the river of Good Remembrance (Purg. xxxiii. 126-45). Looking at Beatrice, he sees that she has turned to gaze into the sun. He does likewise and finds he is able to endure its brilliance for a brief moment. Turning once more to look on Beatrice as she still gazes at the sun, he hears the music of  the heavenly spheres andfinds himself surrounded by a vast sea of light and flame. Beatrice tells him they have risen from the earth and explains the law of universal gravitation. 

The Prepatory Lecture

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Questions for Reflection

• What do the opening lines of Paradiso tell us about what the poem is about? How is this different from the openings of Inferno and Purgatorio?
• How does Dante indicate the failure of poetry to represent adequately the vision of heaven that the pilgrim has had in lines 1-9? Why might it be so important for Dante to highlight this limitation of his poetry?
• How does Dante hope his poem will help people pray better (1.34-36)? What relationship between prayer, praise, and poetry has Dante been developing over the course of the Comedy so far?
• What does Dante begin to become as he stares at Beatrice (1.67-72)? How is it possible for another human being to have this effect? Is this theologically risky or is Dante giving us a fuller sense of the human person than we typically have?
• How does God intentionally order the universe, as Beatrice explains it (1.106-114)? How might this divine ordering be related to the “gloria” with which Paradiso opens?

Paradiso, Canto 1 © Jan Hearn

The Images

The Sun. In the natural universe, which Dante uses as the framework of the story, the sun is the fourth of the planets, which, together with the fixed stars and the Primum Mobile, revolve round the earth from east to west once every twenty-four hours. When the story of Paradise begins, it is noon on the sixth day (Wednesday) of Dante’s journey. Of all the hours of the day, noon, the culminating point of the sun’s light,was considered to be the noblest. The day is near the Spring equinox, considered the perfect season, for then the sun is in the same constellation as it was believed to have been at the time of the Creation. All the celestial conditions are favourable, therefore, to the beginning of the new stage ofDante’s new journey. Allegorically, this would seem to signify that the grace of God shines with the greatest beneficence on the soul when it is most fitted to receive it.
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The Ascent from Earth. In the story, the ascent of Dante through the nine heavens to the Eympyrean, or abode of God, constitutes the plot-mechanism of the narrative. It is what actually happens, and within the time-sequence of the ascent various meetings, conversations, and experiences occur. In the allegory, Dante’s ascent signifies the progress of man’s soul towards God. 

Joe Carlson's Intro and Reading

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