The poetics of Dante's Paradiso / Massimo Verdicchio.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A highly original and comprehensive reading, The Poetics of Dante's Paradiso challenges established scholarly interpretations to demonstrate that the intricacies of Dante's text reveal a subtle irony, employed to deliver a sharp critique of the corrupt church and empire of his own time.

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CHOICE Review

In this canto by canto reading of Paradiso, Verdicchio analyzes the canticle according to the grid Dante provided in his Convivio. In that earlier work, Dante divides the ten heavens according to the ten arts and sciences of the trivium and the quadrivium, and Verdicchio believes that one should use this equivalency in seeking to understand the core message of the third canticle of the Divine Comedy. He sees Paradiso as a commentary on, and denunciation of, political and religious establishments that reign on earth, and he reads it as an allegory permeated by irony. Having decided on this critical approach, the author proceeds to seek support for his convictions in the details of the canticle. He emphasizes that the souls, although eternally blessed in heaven, still have something negative to hide, and he is intent on teasing out these "hidden" truths. Verdicchio refers often to his Reading Dante Reading (?2008), a revision of his dissertation; thus, this book is in essence a continuation and elaboration of that earlier study. If not an entirely convincing revisionist reading of the Paradiso, this book provides food for thought and draws attention once more to the least-studied canticle of the great poem. Summing Up: Optional. Specialists only. R. West University of Chicago