Dottrina come poesia : una lettura di Paradiso XXIV

The essay proposes a reading of Paradiso XXIV canto which is based on the analysis of the entire macrostructural articulation of the chants of the Starry Sky, on a critical repertoire of the metaphories of memory used here to mark the change of status of the character Dante, and on the metapoetic implications of this moment of the heavenly journey. On the one hand, the dialectical confrontation between Dante and the apostle Peter is unfolded within an ideal space delimited by the simplest and most explicit performative formulation of the conceptual object being tested: the prayer. On the other hand, the specular structure of the liminal portions of the song highlights the spiritual progression in the learner Dante who, from the astonished admiration for Beatrice’s word in the initial sequence, through the long investigation experienced in the median piece by way of argument, reaches the conclusive, personal modulation of the divine song.