13. Purgatory XIX, XXI, XXII

Dante in Translation (ITAL 310)

This lecture deals primarily with Purgatory XIX, XXI and XXII. The ambiguity of the imagination discussed in the preceding lecture as the selfsame path to intellectual discovery and disengagement is explored in expressly poetic terms. While the pilgrim's dream of the siren in Purgatory XIX warns of the death-dealing power of aesthetics, the encounter between Statius and Virgil in the cantos that follow points to its life-giving potential by casting poetry as a means of conversion.

00:00 - Chapter 1. The Issue of Imagination
16:23 - Chapter 2. The Dream of Canto XIX; The Two Women
40:29 - Chapter 3. Cantos XXI and XXII: Statius's Moral Conversion
01:09:30 - Chapter 4. Question and Answer

Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://open.yale.edu/courses

This course was recorded in Fall 2008.