Dante's Paradiso

The Divine Comedy, written by Dante over the span of twelve years in the 14th century, is considered the most prominent work in Italian literature, and certainly one of the best works ever written across the globe. While the story superficially is a poem about a man’s surreal journey, it represents every man’s journey toward the savior, which is influenced by the medieval worldview developed in the 14th century western world. In the Eighth sphere in Dante’s Paradiso resides the souls that possess all three of what Dante calls the theological virtues, faith, hope, and love. Dante describes any human that has developed the theological virtues achieved total perfection in humanity. Of these three virtues, however, Dante values love the most, as

The importance of love is conveyed by the reoccurring teaching examples that span over a few lines between Dante and his primary or secondary guide to build an overall bigger picture of what it truly means as well as images of light that are present in every scene. Dante uses a teacher and student motif throughout Paradiso to help the reader understand the intellectually and philosophically challenging analogies used to describe love as it should. Dante realizes that not every reader of the story may be able to follow along, especially when humans made in their own unique image rarely would have the same thought process and interpretations as Dante intended. As put by Triggiano, “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…I argue here that the poet incorporates this motif as a signal to the reader that the pilgrim student has undergone some type of rectification or a grasping of the lesson at hand” (Triggiano 16). This is not only done

At the beginning of the story, Dante begins to depict love, as he believes the true essence of love is. On the first sphere of heaven, Piccarda says to Dante “Brother, the power of love appeases our will so – we only long for what we have” (Alighieri 332). When there is divine love in something, in a place, there is no longer a desire for what is not given to us. Piccarda suggests that because of God’s love for us, he provides what we deserve and what is just for us to receive, and because of our love for him we recognize and accept that which we have received without the yearning for more. Piccarda then tells Dante that there is no other way to really live because love is the only way to happiness for Dante, “but you’ll see no such discord in these sphere; to live in love is – here – necessity, if you think on love’s nature carefully” (Alighieri 332). It seems cynical that love can be the only possible way to happiness but if one were to take a closer look at their own life they might find that the things that bring them happiness they do truly love, whether that is family, friends or just relaxing on a weekend people partake in such activities because they bring them joy and like doing