Beltwayliterature

My final thoughts, now that I have completed my journey with The Purgatorio, are wow!  It took me longer to read this canticle than it did The Inferno.  While I enjoyed The Inferno, there’s something about The Purgatorio that really piques my interest. It seems like something is missing from it though, something that’s right [...]

Finally, in these concluding cantos of The Purgatorio, Dante will come face-to-face with Beatrice!  He has successfully traveled through the nine levels of hell, and the mountain of purgatory.  In these cantos, we see that Dante’s guide has returned to limbo.  Beatrice has now assumed that role. What really stands out to me in these [...]

Wow!  Talk about some serious pain for the purgation of lust, here on the seventh, and final terrace of Purgatory.  If I were to rank the punishments, this one would definitely be in the top 3.  Both those sinners who were guilty of same-sex, and heterosexual lust, were required to walk through an area of fire while [...]

In this terrace, I found a few things to be of particular interest to me.  The first being, this terrace is the first, and only, where two sins are purged in one area.  Secondly, the vision of those guilty of prodigality and avarice are required to lie down, face down, reciting examples of avarice and [...]

As we reach the fourth terrace of Purgatory, the deadly sin of sloth, we find that Dante and Virgil stop to take a break as they are losing daylight on the mountain.  As I discussed previously, movement can only be made during the day on Purgatory. I find it very interesting that on this fourth [...]

In cantos XV and XVI of The Purgatorio, we enter the third terrace of the deadly sin of wrath.  One Virgil and Dante enter this terrace, a thick cloud of smoke engulfs them and they are unable to see anything at all.  While in this terrace, Dante has an “out-of-body” experience where he sees a [...]

In Cantos XIII and XIV of The Purgatorio, we enter the second terrace of envy.  The first thing that grabbed my attention in this terrace was the visual that those awaiting  to purge envy were all huddled together like poor blind beggars, the type that you might see in a Robin Hood flick.  Much to my [...]