What do you think?
Rate this book
IL PARADISO LETTO DA VITTORIO
Book by Sermonti, V
Audio CD
First published January 1, 1993
4 people are currently reading
35 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 23, 2021
While I was reading the 33rd and final canto of Paradiso on a Southwest flight, when Dante gets closer and closer to God, as the people who were sitting near me can attest, the pages of my book started glowing of a light so intense that I was temporarily blinded. The white light kept growing in brightness, to the point that for a few seconds everything in the airplane was pure light.
Ok, ok. Too much, sure. But that is ALMOST what happened when I read those final lines of Paradiso on that flight. That is my way to express how unbelievably great they are.
English poet Thomas Elliot thought that, specifically, Canto 33 of Paradiso was THE best poem ever written. And while it's not fair or even maybe possible to compare poems, I think I understand why he wrote that.
Paradiso has a bad rep in schools and universities: it's typically perceived as the "most boring" or the "heaviest" of the three cantiche of the Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso). How can you compare the shock-factor, the thrill and the fun of reading about the monstruosities of Inferno, with these 33 cantos filled with angels, abstractions, theology, philosophy, and history of the Catholic Church?
Many scholars admit Paradiso is, in fact, the most "difficult" of the three parts, however many also go against the stereotype and consider it the very best one (my personal preference is for Purgatorio).
There are some moments, during Dante's ascent to the highest realm, that take your breath away - and they are fantastically cinematic, as well. One of the most breathtaking moments is when, in canto 33, while looking into the bright light of the trinity, Dante perceives the image of his own face, as a vague perception of the mystery of incarnation. Wow. Still blows me away (that opens up a huge discussion about averroism vs. tomism, and the interpretation of Aristotle).
In several talks and essays throughout his academic and literary career, Eliot consistently referred to the majesty of Dante's masterpiece, finding no other poet "whom I could apply continually, for many purposes, and with much profit."
With specific reference to the third part of the Comedy (Paradiso), Eliot hit the nail right on the head when he said: "Dante, more than any other poet, has succeeded in dealing with his philosophy, not as a theory...or as his own comment or reflection, but in terms of something perceived."
In other words: why would anyone sane talk about philosophy in a poem, and more importantly, how would you achieve that, when philosophy is all about rationality and cold logic? Paradiso of course is not entirely about philosophy, but the philosophy and theology blend in with the rest of the poetic work in a seamless, original way, and they become real poetry.
Maybe Dante’s and Elliot’s point is precisely that philosophy doesn’t have to be cold and unemotional. It can be integrated into our overall perception and felt with our hearts. (I agree with them).
Don't know why I'm going on so much about Eliot, but in his opinion, on top of western literature there are only Shakespeare and Dante, and no one else. Everyone else would follow at a lower level. While Shakespeare was unbeatable in how accurately he had portrayed the variety of all human emotions, Eliot thought that Dante was the writer who had reached the deepest into the human soul.
What I find truly exciting is that, shortly after publishing the Comedy, in a letter to a friend (Cangrande), that could be or could not be authentic, Dante said that he wrote this work to answer two fundamental questions:
1). Why are we unhappy? (answer to be found in Inferno and Purgatory).
2). How can we live a happy life? (answer to be found in Purgatory and Paradise)
Of course, his was a medieval catholic worldview, but the Comedy draws from many sources that are very clearly not catholic. For example, influences from muslim thinkers. Also Dante included some veiled criticisms to official catholic doctrine.
Another common stereotype about this work is that Dante was writing mainly about the afterlife. That interpretation misses the point. The Comedy is polysemic (on purpose, like the Bible): many layers of meanings overlap. Dante talks most of all about THIS life of ours, right now, it talks about our personal experience and our own being, from birth to death, which is a constant and present mix of hell, purgatory and heaven. These three conditions of being are mixed together in our life, maybe even in every second of it, and Dante knew this very well.
Anyway, the truth is, I cannot even begin to try and comment Dante. This third book is everything... a prayer, a love story, a celebration of life, and even a science fiction novel, because when Beatrice takes him by the hand and flies him straight to the moon, he has a lot of things to say about the sun and the moon that are perfectly "scientific", a few centuries before science was officially born.
About this particular edition: I already said in my comment to Purgatorio how hard it is for me to fully admire Vittorio Sermonti, especially after his harsh and unfair comments on the work of Roberto Benigni, who tried to popularize the Comedy in his own style. While I don't have much love for Sermonti, and I hate the "pretend-casual", "fake-colloquial" tone that he adopted in these books (think of the unfunniest person you know trying to be funny), at least he provides good paraphrasing and background research.
Do yourself an immense favor and read the Divine Comedy. It's a shiny treasure.
----------------
26 Nov 2016: Vittorio Sermonti just died. R.I.P.
Ok, ok. Too much, sure. But that is ALMOST what happened when I read those final lines of Paradiso on that flight. That is my way to express how unbelievably great they are.
English poet Thomas Elliot thought that, specifically, Canto 33 of Paradiso was THE best poem ever written. And while it's not fair or even maybe possible to compare poems, I think I understand why he wrote that.
Paradiso has a bad rep in schools and universities: it's typically perceived as the "most boring" or the "heaviest" of the three cantiche of the Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso). How can you compare the shock-factor, the thrill and the fun of reading about the monstruosities of Inferno, with these 33 cantos filled with angels, abstractions, theology, philosophy, and history of the Catholic Church?
Many scholars admit Paradiso is, in fact, the most "difficult" of the three parts, however many also go against the stereotype and consider it the very best one (my personal preference is for Purgatorio).
There are some moments, during Dante's ascent to the highest realm, that take your breath away - and they are fantastically cinematic, as well. One of the most breathtaking moments is when, in canto 33, while looking into the bright light of the trinity, Dante perceives the image of his own face, as a vague perception of the mystery of incarnation. Wow. Still blows me away (that opens up a huge discussion about averroism vs. tomism, and the interpretation of Aristotle).
In several talks and essays throughout his academic and literary career, Eliot consistently referred to the majesty of Dante's masterpiece, finding no other poet "whom I could apply continually, for many purposes, and with much profit."
With specific reference to the third part of the Comedy (Paradiso), Eliot hit the nail right on the head when he said: "Dante, more than any other poet, has succeeded in dealing with his philosophy, not as a theory...or as his own comment or reflection, but in terms of something perceived."
In other words: why would anyone sane talk about philosophy in a poem, and more importantly, how would you achieve that, when philosophy is all about rationality and cold logic? Paradiso of course is not entirely about philosophy, but the philosophy and theology blend in with the rest of the poetic work in a seamless, original way, and they become real poetry.
Maybe Dante’s and Elliot’s point is precisely that philosophy doesn’t have to be cold and unemotional. It can be integrated into our overall perception and felt with our hearts. (I agree with them).
Don't know why I'm going on so much about Eliot, but in his opinion, on top of western literature there are only Shakespeare and Dante, and no one else. Everyone else would follow at a lower level. While Shakespeare was unbeatable in how accurately he had portrayed the variety of all human emotions, Eliot thought that Dante was the writer who had reached the deepest into the human soul.
What I find truly exciting is that, shortly after publishing the Comedy, in a letter to a friend (Cangrande), that could be or could not be authentic, Dante said that he wrote this work to answer two fundamental questions:
1). Why are we unhappy? (answer to be found in Inferno and Purgatory).
2). How can we live a happy life? (answer to be found in Purgatory and Paradise)
Of course, his was a medieval catholic worldview, but the Comedy draws from many sources that are very clearly not catholic. For example, influences from muslim thinkers. Also Dante included some veiled criticisms to official catholic doctrine.
Another common stereotype about this work is that Dante was writing mainly about the afterlife. That interpretation misses the point. The Comedy is polysemic (on purpose, like the Bible): many layers of meanings overlap. Dante talks most of all about THIS life of ours, right now, it talks about our personal experience and our own being, from birth to death, which is a constant and present mix of hell, purgatory and heaven. These three conditions of being are mixed together in our life, maybe even in every second of it, and Dante knew this very well.
Anyway, the truth is, I cannot even begin to try and comment Dante. This third book is everything... a prayer, a love story, a celebration of life, and even a science fiction novel, because when Beatrice takes him by the hand and flies him straight to the moon, he has a lot of things to say about the sun and the moon that are perfectly "scientific", a few centuries before science was officially born.
About this particular edition: I already said in my comment to Purgatorio how hard it is for me to fully admire Vittorio Sermonti, especially after his harsh and unfair comments on the work of Roberto Benigni, who tried to popularize the Comedy in his own style. While I don't have much love for Sermonti, and I hate the "pretend-casual", "fake-colloquial" tone that he adopted in these books (think of the unfunniest person you know trying to be funny), at least he provides good paraphrasing and background research.
Do yourself an immense favor and read the Divine Comedy. It's a shiny treasure.
----------------
26 Nov 2016: Vittorio Sermonti just died. R.I.P.
November 21, 2020
Il Paradiso, all'improvviso
Con questo terzo tomo concludo la lettura integrale della Divina Commedia nell’eccellente commento di Sermonti, consigliatomi da una persona altrettanto eccellente, il bravissimo e coltissimo Prof. Casalegno che insegna Letteratura Poetica e Drammatica al Conservatorio di Torino e che colgo occasione di ringraziare pubblicamente. Sicuramente, questa lettura “non scolastica”, quindi non praticata come “atto dovuto” (ottimo presupposto per odiare qualsiasi argomento, anche il più stimolante) è stata molto istruttiva. Mi ha permesso di conoscere nel profondo vari aspetti della Commedia che, per vari motivi (i più comuni: turpiloquio e pesanti allusioni sessuali) vengono abitualmente lasciati fuori da quei dieci o quindici canti per cantica che sono correntemente inflitti agli studenti di tutti i livelli della scuola italiana. Il Paradiso, va da sé, delle tre cantiche è la più complessa. Qui le reminiscenze storiche e biografiche, i fatterelli di questo o di quel personaggio reale o mitologico passano in secondo piano rispetto alla descrizione dell’indescrivibile, il Divino - esercizio ovviamente giocato sul confine dell’impossibile - e all’esegesi e al commento di fonti teologiche complesse e articolate; cose che ovviamente Dante fa da par suo, se mai gli esiste un “pari”. Un’unica osservazione conclusiva. Se uno fa il minimo sforzo di “chiamarsi fuori”, di guardare l’immane costruzione religioso-teologica dall’esterno (non mi riferisco a quella della Commedia, che pure ne fa parte a pieno titolo, ma a quella globale della religione cristiana) non può non saltargli all’occhio il fatto che questa sia costruita esclusivamente di folli equilibrismi mentali finalizzati a dare fondamenti logici e ragionevoli a ciò che logico e ragionevole non è e non può essere: la fede. A cominciare dal credere che duemila e passa anni fa in Palestina siano successi avvenimenti di un certo rilievo nonché un certo qual numero di fatti inspiegabili (altrimenti detti miracoli), poi raccontati in documenti che furono scritti molti anni dopo da persone che non ne furono nemmeno testimoni oculari. Passando poi dal fatto che esista un Dio creatore che può tutto e sa tutto ma nonostante questo “consente” il male (altra bella fonte di teorizzazioni arzigogolate prodotte nel corso di migliaia di anni) per arrivare all’idea di un Dio che sacrifica sé stesso come uomo a sé stesso Dio come indennizzo dei danni che egli stesso in quanto uomo ha procurato (altro bell’enigma, che secondo me è stato risolto solo da René Girard in tempi recentissimi e su basi etnico-antropologiche, non religiose). Peraltro, discutere l’insostenibilità delle ragioni logiche alla fede non significa distruggere la fede. Significa soltanto affermare che la fede non è razionale, non ha bisogno di motivazioni e di spiegazioni; potremmo dire che gioca in tutt’altro campionato, principalmente quello del silenzio e non della parola o della logica (alla faccia del Verbo...). Non a caso, in tempi recenti e con strumenti culturali molto più potenti di quelli a disposizione ai tempi di Dante, chi ha cercato di dimostrare logicamente l’esistenza di Dio o ha finito per perdere la fede, o è addirittura impazzito (come il matematico Goedel). E non a caso, al Dante teologo (con tutto il rispetto) il Dante visionario e mistico che si specchia nella finale visione di Dio sovrasta di molte lunghezze. Infine, è fuori discussione che il posto occupato dalla Divina Commedia nel panorama della letteratura mondiale sia ampiamente meritato.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews