Divine Comedy: Paradiso Literary Elements

Narrative poem, allegory

Paradise (outside of time and space, although it is a continuation of his journey begun in 1300 AD)

The narrator is Dante, who is both the author and the main character. His knowledge is sometimes limited and sometimes omniscient.

Awestruck, reverent, formal

The protagonist is Dante, although all characters in Paradise are completely good

The primary explicit conflict is the struggle of Dante's mind to comprehend the wonders of Heaven that no mortal mind can completely understand. But there are moments of intellectual conflict in Dante's discussions, and even further, the souls often tell narratives of their lives that include minor but significant conflicts.

In the last few cantos, Dante's revelatory experience of the divine serves as a complex and visionary climax.

Throughout Paradiso, Dante is ascending farther up into the spheres of Heaven, and each sphere shows a bit more of God's majesty; in that sense, the entirety of the work is building up to his divine revelation at the end.

Since, as Beatrice explains to Dante, Paradise is so far above his level of comprehension that it appears to him in a form that his mind can understand, the whole of Paradise can be seen as a form of understatement. God's beauty and holiness are so mind-blowingly magnificent that this poetic rendition is a mere shadow of the real thing.

The poem is full of allusions to books of Scripture; for example, the "snow-white rose" of angels that appear to Dante in Canto XXXI, alongside the explanation of Christ's atoning blood, reference the book of Isaiah (1:18) with their imagery. Moreover, in the upper spheres of Paradise, Dante speaks with several saints and church fathers, whose works are referenced in their speeches (such as St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Francis, and St. Bernard).

Paradiso is full of imagery, permeating the text. Major images include light and flowers.

This poem itself is a major paradox: Dante is trying to convey with words what by definition cannot be conveyed with words. The majesty of Heaven is so great that it cannot be communicated, and yet Dante is attempting to communicate it to the reader throughout Paradiso.

An example of synecdoche is Dante's use of the "laurel" to represent the entirety of the laurel crown (or, more broadly, to represent praise of poetry).

In the narrative of Saint Francis of Assisi, Poverty is personified as a lady.