This shows how Dante isn’t yet ready for direct knowledge of God, though Dante still tenaciously seeks God through indirect knowledge. By showing Dante’s lessening need to look to Beatrice and his growing ability to endure the sight of God directly, Dante suggests that the more determinedly a person seeks God, the more a person will be able to see and understand God, though never exhaustively.Īt first, Dante cannot look directly toward the heavens for long, though he wants to instead, he redirects his gaze to Beatrice’s lesser yet still dazzling beauty. By the end of the cantica, Dante is strong enough to look briefly upon the beauty of God himself, no longer needing to look instead at Beatrice. Significantly, as he journeys through Heaven, Dante’s desire to look at Beatrice gradually lessens as his strength to endure her beauty strengthens. But that Dante continually gazes at his beloved Beatrice anyway shows that love keeps him pressing forward. His overwhelm and loss of sight in the face of her beauty-symbolically, the beauty of divine revelation, or indirect knowledge of God-suggests that his own knowledge of God is weak and easily overwhelmed. Sometimes, just looking at the beautiful Beatrice overpowers and temporarily blinds Dante. As he journeys through Heaven, Dante frequently gazes at his beloved Beatrice, who throughout The Divine Comedy has symbolized divine revelation.
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