Scarcity, Abundance, And The Poetics Between The Terraces: PURGATORIO, Canto XV, Lines 34 - 57

Walking With Dante

Dante and Virgil encounter the awaited angel as they begin their ascent to the third terrace of Purgatory proper.

They hear two snippets of song. They find the climb easier. And Dante asks Virgil to gloss two lines Guido del Duca said back in Canto XIV. All these things indicate the shifting the nature of COMEDY itself as we enter its middle cantos.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this passage about the climb to the third terrace and see the shifting nature of COMEDY's audience and purpose.

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

[01:18] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XV, lines 34 - 57. If you'd like to read along or continue the converation with me, please find this specific episode on my website: markscarbrough.com.

[03:31] An increasing emphasis on transitional figures and a more overt allegory in COMEDY as a whole.

[08:15] Two bits of song: a fragment of a beatitude in Latin (from Matthew 5:7) and an exhortation in medieval Florentine.

[12:07] The question who sings these two phrases.

[15:13] The shifting dynamic in COMEDY to the correction, not of behavior, but of the mind.

[18:44] Virgil's gloss on scarcity and abundance, as well as the civic threat of envy.

[26:42] The problem of the audience for Guido's (and Virgil's!) speech.

[30:45] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XV, lines 34 - 57.