Renegotiating COMEDY As PURGATORIO Nears Its Climax: PURGATORIO, Canto XXIII, Lines 112 - 133

Forese Donati has finished his diatribe about Florentine women and is now ready to hear Dante the pilgrim's story. Who did the pilgrim get here in the flesh?

The pilgrim retells the journey, renegotiating its opening and reconfiguring its theology, even this high up on the mountain, as we near the apocalyptic climax of PURGATORIO.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we walk slowly through this last passage in Canto XXIII.

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Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:27] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXIII, lines 112 - 133. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with a comment, please find this episode on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[04:09] A V-shaped structure reinforced for Canto XXIII.

[06:17] A question of what Forese should remember and how the opening of COMEDY should be understood.

[10:20] Further negotiations about the plot of COMEDY.

[14:22] The first time the pilgrim Dante names Beatrice and the first time he acknowledges the loss of Virgil.

[16:09] A curious moment: Virgil named and Statius unnamed.

[18:29] Two larger questions. One, COMEDY is a poem in process.

[20:03] Two, PURGATORIO replicates the structure of the New Testament.

[23:16] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXIII, lines 112 - 133.