Ovid's Semele and Dante's Metamorphosis

In the seventh Heaven of Paradiso, that of Saturn and of the Contemplatives, Dante is elaborately and systematically presented as a corrected, Christian Semele. The culmination of this presentation takes place just after the Pilgrim's arrival in the eighth Heavenin the context of Christ's descent and reascent in Par. XXIII. The present article seeks to investigate both how this Semele program functions and what it means in terms of the poetics of the third

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