Dante’s claims in and around Paradiso 25

Abstract

The extraordinary claims that Dante makes in cantos 24–26 of Paradiso with regard to both his theoretical knowledge and his actual ‘possession’ of the three theological virtues – Faith, Hope and Charity – do not seem to be entirely consistent with the story of a character who, only a few days earlier, was struggling in the dark forest and about to succumb to intellectual bewilderment and moral straying. Why else was that character so close to spiritual death if not because he lacked those virtues which he now claims to know so profoundly and hold in supreme measure? This paper argues first, that Dante here transcends any distinction that may operate elsewhere in the poem between Dante as character, narrator and author; second, that his claims make sense in the context of his circumstances at the time when he composed cantos 24–26 of Paradiso, i.e. on or just before 1320, twenty years after the fictional date of his journey to the Otherworld; and third, that he is likely to have made such claims in order to preempt any attack on himself, his poem and his mission as theologian, prophet and reformer of the Church.