Dante and Reality/Dante and Realism (Paradiso)

Abstract

The heuristic intersection of Dante and reality with Dante and realism leads to the observation that the part of the Commedia that most meditates upon reality (Paradiso) is the part perceived by readers as the least realistic. Dante is in fact just as committed to realism in the Paradiso as in the Inferno and Purgatorio, but there are different types of realism in the Commedia: realism of place and realism of character diminish in the Paradiso. In the third realm Dante devises a “conceptual realism” through which he attempts to assist the reader in the imaginative work required to understand what he has to say about being – “lo gran mar dell’essere” – and reality. But Dante has no illusions; he knows that reality is a harder sell than realism, as he tells us at the beginning of Paradiso 2.