Dante’s Heavenly Lessons: Educative Economy in the Paradiso

The educative process in the Comedy occurs in a wide variety of experiences as pilgrim and reader progress together in an itinerary that promises nothing less than a revelation of God. To this objective, a certain preparation is required and the poet entrusts the evolving maturation of the pilgrim to a succession of capable teachers. Fulfilling their roles as guides, Virgil, Beatrice and St. Bernard lead the pilgrim through a type of developmental instruction; first in the correction and then perfection of his will, next in the correction and then perfection of his intellect.¹ The collective interactions of primary and secondary instructors with the pilgrim student often employ familiar pedagogical strategies; some are lessons executed in overtly academic settings recalling the scholastic exercises of debate and examination practiced in medieval universities; some are less intellectual and require of the pilgrim a physical or sensorial engagement. The posing of question and response is present throughout the poem, and inherent to that process is a system of error correction. A type of reciprocal activity, error correction contributes to the design of the poem’s overarching metaphor of rectification: the poet postures a fault in the pilgrim’s feeling or thinking with a congruent amendment.² Most often in the Paradiso, error correction involves clarification, but in the Inferno and the Purgatorio it is often designed graphically by way of a figurative unfolding or straightening of a human body or an object.³ In Inferno 2, the simile of flowers bent down by the chill of night that straighten to the warmth of the sun describes the effect of Virgil’s encouraging discourse upon the failing will of the pilgrim.

  Dunque: che è? perché, perché restai, perché tanta viltà nel core allette, perché ardire e franchezza non hai,   poscia che tai tre donne benedette curan di te ne la corte del cielo, e ’l mio parlar tanto ben ti promette?”   Quali fioretti dal notturno gelo chinati e chiusi, poi che ’l sol li ’imbianca, si drizzan tutti aperti in loro stelo,   tal mi fec’io di mia virtude stanca, e tanto buono ardire al cor mi corse, ch’i’ cominciai come persona franca:    “Oh pietosa colei che mi soccorse! e te cortese ch’ubidisti tosto a le vere parole che ti porse! ⁴

(Inferno 2.121–35)

[“What then? Why, why do you delay? / Why do you let such cowardice rule your heart? / Why are you not more spirited and sure, / “when three such blessèd ladies / care for you in Heaven’s court / and my words promise so much good? / As little flowers, bent and closed / with chill of night, when the sun / lights them, stand all open on their stems, / such, in my failing strength, did I become. / And so much courage poured into my heart / that I began, as one made resolute: / “O how compassionate was she to help me, / how courteous were you, so ready to obey / the truthful words she spoke to you!”]

Virgil’s promise of tanto ben (so much good) is a reminder of the restorative power of Beatrice’s love and anticipates a happy ending to the imminent endeavor.

The blurred paths of the dark woods introduce the geographical confusion of hell; navigation of its passageway requires a certain physical and emotional exertion. Later, if the way up the mountain of purgatory is predictable, it is not without its own brand of twists and turns as it is described by the pilgrim as “la montagna / che drizza voi che ’l mondo fece torti” (Purgatorio 23.125–126) [the mountain / that straightens those made crooked by the world]. Once the poem leaves behind terrestrial courses, the pilgrim’s movement in the last stages of his journey requires a different progression, certainly one less physically strenuous and more dependent on mental gymnastics.

Present in many of the “teaching moments” of the Comedy is a mechanism that also serves to move the poem forward; it is of a linguistic design—where there occurs a pairing, within a span of ten lines or less, of some form of the word torcere ‘to twist’ with...