Dante the pilgrim and his guide, Virgil, take on the last bit of the climb out of the first terrace of Purgatory proper, the terrace of pride. PURGATORIO continues to compellingly difficult and enjoyable because they exit the terrace with two interesting and unexpected moments: Virgil smiles and God’s writing is erased.
Read MoreDante and Virgil climb to the second terrace of Purgatory through one of the more difficult similes in all of COMEDY: a contorted and rage-filled bit of poetry about Florence and its corruption, all in the emotional landscape of redemption, which ends at one of Jesus’s beatitudes and also the screams of hell itself.
Read MoreDante and Virgil begin to leave the terrace of pride and all its art, but not before Virgil returns to form, becoming the guide to the afterlife with a penchant for quoting himself and not before an angel must guide them to the stairs, an angel who carries in his face an implicit reference to Lucifer (that is, Satan).
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