Paradiso Canto 26


VIDEO VERSION

AUDIO VERSION



OVERVIEW

Brendan Case is the Associate Director for Research at Harvard University’s Human Flourishing Project. He is the author of The Accountable Animal: Justice, Justification, and Judgement, and his work develops integrative research strategies to examine human flourishing across cultures.

Questions for Reflection

  • Why does Dante begin his exam on love while he is blind? Why is he examined on love by St. John?
  • How does Dante tie the carnal and the theological dimensions of love together (26.13-15)?
  • How do created goods participate in the Supreme Good (26.28-36)? And how does human love figure into the equation? How is Dante’s theological love manifested in the three central movements of Christian theology (26.58-60)?
  • When Dante regains his sight, how has his sight refined (26.76-81)?
  • Why might Dante choose to meet Adam in this canto? What does Dante want to learn from Adam and why might this be appropriate for the narrative of this canto? How does Adam echo Ulysses (from Inferno 26) in lines 115-117? Why would Dante draw this connection between them?

DETAILS

  • Dr. Brendan Case
  • Harvard University
  • Run Time 9:26