The Paradiso Companion (Includes Study Guide, Historical Context, and Character Index)

By BookCaps

Dante’s "Paradise" (or Puradiso) is a true classic that people have appreciated for over a hundred years. The fact that it is a classic doesn’t mean every reader will breeze through it with no problem at all. If you need just a little more help with Dante's classic, then let BookCaps help with this simplified study guide!

This book contains a comprehension study of Dante's classic work (including chapter summaries for every chapter, and an overview of themes and characters). This edition does not include the poem.

We all need refreshers every now and then. Whether you are a student trying to cram for that big final, or someone just trying to understand a book more, BookCaps can help. We are a small, but growing company, and are adding titles every month.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookCaps
• Release date: Jul 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301718788

BookCaps

We all need refreshers every now and then. Whether you are a student trying to cram for that big final, or someone just trying to understand a book more, BookCaps can help. We are a small, but growing company, and are adding titles every month.Visit www.bookcaps.com to see more of our books, or contact us with any questions.

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Introduction

Dante’s Paradiso is the third and final part of Dante’s epic Divine Comedy poem. The word Comedy in the title doesn’t mean the epic poem is meant to be funny. It means it’s not a tragedy. In other words, in classical literature, the word comedy means the story has a happy ending.

This third part of the Divine Comedy certainly is the happy ending of the trilogy. After working his way through the horrors of Hell and the trials of Purgatory, Heaven is a place of blessed souls and chosen children of God. Here, Dante meets angels and saints, as well as God himself.

Before we look deeply into the characters and individual cantos of this poem, let’s take a brief look at Paradiso, just to catch up with the story, and then we’ll see a general summary of the plot of Paradiso.

Previously in the Devine Comedy

So let’s review what’s happened up to the beginning of Paradiso.

The Story of Inferno

In inferno, Dante is guided by Virgil the Latin Poet through the various circles of Hell. Each new circle was deeper than the last and dedicated to a certain kind of sinner. The first circle was Limbo, dedicated to good men and women that lived before Christ. Virgil was from Limbo.

The second circle held the lustful, tormented by great storms. The third was for the gluttonous, who suffered under freezing rain. The fourth circle was where both the greedy and the wasteful had to eternally push giant weights around. The wrathful and the sullen suffered in the muddy river Styx in the fifth circle.

The travelers reached the city Dis and needed an angel’s help to get in through the hostile residents. When the crossed the gates, they also entered the sixth circle, where heretics were trapped in fiery tombs. The seventh circle was where the violent were punished, and the eighth and ninth circle were dedicated to different kinds of fraud.

When they finally got to the bottom of the ninth circle, they saw sinners trapped under a glassy sea of ice. Half buried in that sea was Lucifer, a three-headed beast, a different sinner in each of his three mouths.

In order to get out of Hell, Virgil and Dante climb Lucifer, ending up coming out of the subterranean horror world and onto the southern hemisphere of the earth, where they come to the mountain of Purgatory.

The Story of Purgatorio

Purgatoria picked up right where Inferno left off—Dante and Virgil on the southern hemisphere, standing at the base Mount Purgatory, which was also on an island. The first area the visited was called ante-Purgatory. Dante and Virgil saw the Valley of the Rulers, where a bunch of dead kings resided. A shadowy serpent appeared at dusk, but it was driven away by two angels.

No one could travel in Purgatory at night. So each time the sun went down, Dante and Virgil had to stop and rest until sunrise. Dante slept this first night, only to wake up at the gates of Purgatory. St. Lucia had carried him there through the night.

They climbed the three steps to the gate, and the angel and the entrance marked seven P’s on Dante’s forehead.

The first terrace was for the Prideful. Large sculptures showed examples of humility. The prideful penitents had climb with giant, heavy weights on top of them. Because these souls were always bent over, Dante bent himself over to talk to them. He felt such compassion for them that he walked hunched down all the way to the gate of the second terrace.

This terrace was dedicated to the Envious, where voices called out examples of love. The envious penitents were punished by having their eyes sewn shut with wire. As the travelers moved on to the next terrace, an angel removed one of the P’s from Dante’s forehead.

The third terrace was the home of the Wrathful. Dante had a vision of examples of gentleness. The wrathful were being punished by being constantly covered in black smoke. Dante and Virgil found the angel, who then removed another P from Dante’s forehead, allowing him to climb to the next terrace.

The Slothful were punished in the fourth terrace. There, Virgil lectured Dante on the structure of Purgatory, Love, and Free Will. The slothful