From its opening lines, it's clear that PARADISO is not like what has come before in COMEDY. Dante seems to be renegotiating the terms of his poem, establishing a new voice, a new model, and a new methodology for who he will proceed.

These opening lines are already packed with the sort of theological and philosophical stumbling blocks that make PARADISO a challenge, not just for a modern reader, but even for a medieval one.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we slowly walk throug the first twelve lines of what is assuredly the most imaginative canticle, PARADISO.

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

[02:42] My English translation of PARADISO, Canto I, lines 1 - 12. If you'd like to read along, please find the entry for this episode on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[03:56] The glory of the unmoved mover.

[09:39] The varying illuminations of the universe.

[13:27] The finite geography of heaven.

[15:54] A passing glance at the highest heaven.

[17:34] Dante and St. Paul, renegotiated.

[19:25] The interrelations of desire, intellect, memory, and potentially Beatrice.

[22:23] The memory of a memory--or knowing by not knowing, the core of the aphophatic revelation.

[29:37] The key paradox of the mystical experience: the cross-currents of the material and the immaterial.

[33:02] The resurrection of Brunetto Latini.

[35:25] Rereading the passage: PARADISO, Canto I, Lines 1 - 12.