At this point I admit my defeat;
no poet, comic or tragic, ever was
more outdone by his theme than I am now

for, as sunlight does to the weakest eyes,
so did the mere thought of her lovely smile
strike every recognition from my mind.

From the first day that I beheld her face
in this life till the vision of her now,
I could trust in my poems to sing her praise,

but now I must stop trying to pursue
her beauty in my verse, for I have done
as much as any artist at his best.

Dante’s Divine Comedy comes to an end with Paradiso, as Beatrice guides him through the nine spheres of Heaven to his ultimate encounter with God. But how does Dante approach describing a place filled with people who are satisfied basking in God’s indescribable glory? And how does he reconcile his obsession with measuring out time while also trying to contend with timelessness? Suzanne and Chris think through endings and puddings.

SHOW NOTES.

Dante: Paradiso. [Bookshop.]

That’s the Mark Musa translation; see also the Singleton and the Sanders/Birk versions.

Our episodes on Inferno and Purgatorio.

Also by Dante: De Vulgari Eloquentia; La Vita Nuova; Convivio; De Monarchia.

Sandow Birk’s Dante illustrations, including the Rose.

Our episodes on Paradise Lost and the Confessions.

Rare audio of Erich Auerbach giving a lecture on “The Three Traits of Dante’s Poetry” in March 1948.

Robert Heinlein: The Door into Summer.

The relevent episode on Chris’s other podcast will be out in a few days.

Jorge Luis Borges: Labyrinths.

William Shakespeare: The Winter’s Tale.

Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler’s Wife.

Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone: This Is How You Lose the Time War.

The Seven Sleepers.

Walter Miller: A Canticle for Leibowitz.

Next: Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway. [Bookshop.]

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