ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -The Paradiso begins at the top of Mount Purgatory, called the Earthly Paradise (i.e. the Garden of Eden), at noon on Wednesday, March 30 (or April 13), 1300, following Easter Sunday.

Detailed explanation-2: -Dante tells that he traversed the three kingdoms of the afterlife during the spring equinox, starting on the night between the 7th and 8th of April of 1300, the year of the first Jubilee proclaimed by Pope Boniface VIII, and that he ended his journey at midnight of 14th April.

Detailed explanation-3: -Dante’s poem ends back on earth. He has made a full circle. He will go out into the world, changed by what he has experienced, and try by his words to lead others to the same unity with God. It has to be what we would call a “personal encounter.” As Mazzotta said, the only way to God is through the heart.

Detailed explanation-4: -In the final moments of Paradiso-and of the entire Comedy-Dante understands what he sees. Of course, we’re not allowed to see what he gets. Dante would say his understanding ultimately cannot be expressed in words, but we’re told he receives understanding that no other living man has gotten.

Detailed explanation-5: -First, he imagines Purgatory as being divided up into seven terraces, each one corresponding to a vice (in the order that Dante sees them: Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Avarice and Prodigality, Gluttony and Lust).