OVERVIEW

Patrick Burke is a professor of philosophy at Gonzaga University. He is an expert of contemporary French philosophy, and he is the author of he Barbarian Principle: Merleau-Ponty, Schelling, and the Question of Nature.

Questions for Reflection

• Who is Charles Martel and why might he be Dante’s chosen conversation partner for Venus?
• What is the image of mutual love and delight that Dante explores in lines 8.27-39?
• What relationship does Dante conceive between God and the heavens (8.97-111)? How does this allow Dante to explore God’s providence over creation? What image does Dante use in 103-105 and how does this connect back to Dante’s use of this same image in Paradiso118-135?
• Dante associates Venus with rhetoric. Why would Dante explore the nature of the will and causality in the heaven of rhetoric?