For all its breathtaking scope, Dante's Vision and the Circle of Knowledge still takes enormous power from sharp readings of particular texts, like the Inferno's canto of Bertran de Born where "God's justice is poetic justice" (79), the Purgatorio's dream of the siren where vision is privileged "because it is never partitioned" (152), and Paradiso's heaven of the contemplatives where "poetry is the source of vision" (166).

For all its breathtaking scope, Dante's Vision and the Circle of Knowledge still takes enormous power from sharp readings of particular texts, like the Inferno's canto of Bertran de Born where "God's justice is poetic justice" (79), the Purgatorio's dream of the siren where vision is privileged "because it is never partitioned" (152), and Paradiso's heaven of the contemplatives where "poetry is the source of vision" (166).