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A review by josiahdegraaf
Paradise by Dante Alighieri
5.0
Paradise is certainly the most challenging and least-easily-accessible portion of The Divine Comedy, largely due to its lack of poetic images, but the depth of it is simply phenomenal. Whether it be a large theological treatise all to explain why people can fly in Heaven, the deep investigations of the nature of God's justice, the constant theme of focusing one's gaze on Christ, or the thoughtful reflections of the three theological virtues, this book has a ton of depth--much more than I was able to plumb this time around. I've read this last section of Dante's epic three times now and only now do I feel like I'm beginning to get what Dante is trying to do with it.
I'm going to need to read this more carefully a fourth time eventually to fully unpack Dante's point here. In the meantime, I just need to mention that, as often as I've read this book, the ending of The Divine Comedy gives me chills every time I read it. What a conclusion:
"Thither my own wings could not carry me. But the truth I longed for came to me, smiting my mind with lightning flashing bright. Here ceased the powers of my high fantasy. Yet, as a wheel moves smoothly, free from jars, my will and my desire were turned by love. The love that moves the sun and the other stars."
Rating: 4.5 Stars (Excellent).
I'm going to need to read this more carefully a fourth time eventually to fully unpack Dante's point here. In the meantime, I just need to mention that, as often as I've read this book, the ending of The Divine Comedy gives me chills every time I read it. What a conclusion:
"Thither my own wings could not carry me. But the truth I longed for came to me, smiting my mind with lightning flashing bright. Here ceased the powers of my high fantasy. Yet, as a wheel moves smoothly, free from jars, my will and my desire were turned by love. The love that moves the sun and the other stars."
Rating: 4.5 Stars (Excellent).