Light Symbol in Paradiso

Throughout Paradiso, light symbolizes the presence or knowledge of God. On the surface, light’s simplicity suggests God’s purity and perfect self-sufficiency. But light also suggests God’s constant generosity, as God’s love and grace naturally shine forth to illuminate his creation.

Throughout most of his journey through the heavens, Dante is unable to look directly at God’s light—at the beginning, even a brief glance toward the sun stuns him. This inability to look directly at light suggests that Dante isn’t ready or able to fully see and know God yet. Instead, he sees God’s light reflected in the eyes of his beloved, Beatrice, who guides him through Heaven. Beatrice’s gaze symbolizes indirect revelation of God, as opposed to direct sight: “This light in me proceeds / from perfect sight,” she explains when Dante finds he cannot steadily endure even this much light. But as Dante learns more about the nature of God and Heaven over the course of his journey, his sight acclimates until he can enjoy more of Beatrice’s gaze and, eventually, can graduate from indirect revelation of God to direct sight of God’s light. At the end of Paradiso, Dante is able to look directly at the light of God (“pure light of intellect, all love”) and sees that the entire universe, in all its diversity, is contained and bound together within this single light.

Light Quotes in Paradiso

The Paradiso quotes below all refer to the symbol of Light. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

Glory, from Him who moves all things that are,
penetrates the universe and then shines back,
reflected more in one part, less elsewhere.

High in that sphere which takes from Him most light
I was – I was! – and saw things there that no one
who descends knows how or ever can repeat.

For, drawing near to what it most desires,
our intellect so sinks into the deep
no memory can follow it that far.

Related Characters: Dante Alighieri (speaker)

Related Symbols: Light

Page Number and Citation: 320

Explanation and Analysis:

I see full well that human intellect
can never be content unless that truth
beyond which no truth soars shines down on it.

[…] Born of that will, there rise up, like fresh shoots,
pure doubts. These flourish at the foot of truth.
From height to height, they drive us to the peak.

This beckons me.

Related Characters: Dante Alighieri (speaker), Beatrice

Related Symbols: Light

Page Number and Citation: 337

Explanation and Analysis:

Call as I might on training, art or wit,
no words of mine could make the image seen.
Belief, though, may conceive it, eyes still long.

In us, imagination is too mean
for such great heights. And that’s no miracle.
For no eye ever went beyond the sun.

So shining there was that fourth family
that’s always fed by one exalted Sire
with sight of what He breathes, what Son He has.

Related Characters: Dante Alighieri (speaker)

Related Symbols: Light

Page Number and Citation: 365

Explanation and Analysis:

The providence that rules the universe,
in counsels so profound that all created
countenance will yield before it finds its depth […]

ordained two princes that, on either side,
should walk along with [the Church] and be her guide.

The one was seraph-like in burning love,
the other in intelligence a splendour
on the earth that shone like Heaven’s cherubim.

[…] Their different actions served a single plan.

Related Characters: Thomas Aquinas (speaker), Dante Alighieri, Francis of Assisi, Dominic

Related Symbols: Light

Page Number and Citation: 370

Explanation and Analysis:

So too, like constellations in the depths
of Mars, these rays composed the honoured sign […]

And here remembering surpasses skill:
that cross, in sudden flaring, blazed out Christ
so I can find no fit comparison.

But those who take their cross and follow Christ
will let me off where, wearily, I fail,
seeing in that white dawn, as lightning, Christ.

Related Characters: Dante Alighieri (speaker)

Related Symbols: Light

Page Number and Citation: 387

Explanation and Analysis:

As bolts of fire, unlocked from thunder clouds,
expand beyond containment in those bounds,
then fall to ground […]

so, too, surrounded by this solemn feast,
my own mind, grown the greater now, went forth
and can’t remember what it then became.

‘Open your eyes and look at what I am!
You have seen things by which you’re made so strong,
you can, now, bear to look upon my smile.’

Related Characters: Dante Alighieri (speaker), Beatrice (speaker)

Related Symbols: Light

Page Number and Citation: 429

Explanation and Analysis:

Light Symbol Timeline in Paradiso

The timeline below shows where the symbol Light appears in Paradiso. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

Vision, Knowledge, and the Pursuit of God Theme Icon

Dante has traveled to the realm that’s most filled with God’s light—that is, Heaven. While there, he saw things that he wouldn’t know how to explain, even... (full context)

Creation and God’s Providence Theme Icon

...he redirects his gaze to Beatrice instead. When Dante hears heavenly music and sees blazing lights filling the sky, Beatrice says that they have risen beyond the Earthly Paradise toward the... (full context)

...the varied coloration on the moon’s surface—basically, that each of the heavenly spheres reflects the light of the sun in a different way, and that different parts of the moon reflect... (full context)

...Maria. Dante turns to look at Beatrice again, and his eyes are overwhelmed by her radiant light. (full context)

...voices his gratitude. He also observes that intellect can’t be content until the greatest Truth shines on it. Doubts surface which drive the intellect in its pursuit of truth until it... (full context)

Beatrice tells Dante it’s no surprise that he is often overwhelmed by the light of her gaze. The light “proceeds from perfect sight.” Already, Beatrice can see that light... (full context)

...whirl out of sight, singing. Dante has a question for Beatrice, but, embarrassed by her radiant smile, he stays silent. But Beatrice perceives and speaks his question: how is it just,... (full context)

...to the sphere of the sun, which completely surpasses Dante’s capacity to describe. Flares of light circle around the two of them, as if in a dance. Stopping, one of these... (full context)

The circling lights are soon surrounded by a second circle of lights, which moves and sings in harmony... (full context)

The two circles of lights resume their revolutions around Beatrice and Dante, singing praises to the Trinity and especially to... (full context)

...he and Beatrice rise to the heavenly sphere of Mars, Dante perceives a ring of light forming outside the other two. His eyes soon become unable to bear the light. He... (full context)

In the heavenly sphere of Mars, the singing falls silent, and a light, resembling a shooting star, flashes across the sky to the foot of the cross-shaped collection... (full context)

Dante admires the gleaming eagle, in which individual souls shine forth like rubies. The eagle’s beak opens, and it... (full context)

...smiling because, at this level of Heaven, her beauty would have the effect of a lightning strike and could perhaps destroy Dante. When Dante turns his attentions to his surroundings, he... (full context)

...Dante to turn and look at Saturn’s souls once more. When he does, a particularly brilliant soul approaches, introducing himself as St. Benedict. (full context)

...and asks for strength to continue his journey. Beatrice then exhorts Dante to keep the light within his eye clear, being so close to his goal. Instead of getting too caught... (full context)

...face and happy eyes. Then Dante looks into the stars, too, and sees one overpoweringly bright glow , which Beatrice says is Christ himself. Because Dante has been strengthened by all he’s... (full context)

...offers—the Virgin Mary is here, for one. As Dante gazes on this fiery star, another light streaks through the sky and circles her, singing. The light identifies himself as the Angel... (full context)

...Heaven, asking them to allow Dante to taste a morsel of their joy. One soul flames forth joyously and circles Beatrice, singing an impossibly beautiful song. This soul—St. Peter—says that Beatrice... (full context)

...notes that belief in the true God has an additional basis in metaphysics.) St. Peter’s light, singing, circles Dante three times in joyous approval. (full context)

...Dante further explains that he hopes for what Scripture promises—friendship with God. Soon after, another gleaming soul approaches, which Beatrice identifies as that of the apostle John. St. John’s brightness temporarily... (full context)

...out in a hymn. At this, Dante is abruptly healed of his blindness by Beatrice’s shining gaze. Now Dante can see better than ever before. He sees that a fourth soul... (full context)

...of the earth beneath them once more. After that, Dante is drawn by Beatrice’s increasingly radiant smile into the next sphere of Heaven, the Primum Mobile. This sphere, the ninth, contains... (full context)

...from Beatrice’s lovely gaze, Dante sees reflected in her eyes a small, single point of light with fire whirling around it. Dante counts a total of nine rings circling around the... (full context)

...to add anything to himself (for he lacks nothing), but instead so that his own light would shine back to him. The angels were his first creation, simultaneously with the heavens... (full context)

...reflect on the diversity of the angels, as they all differently reflect God’s single, eternal light. (full context)

...writes.) Beatrice explains that they have left the “material spheres” behind and risen to “pure light of intellect, all love.” They are entering the Empyrean. Here Dante will see all the... (full context)

Dante finds himself enveloped in brilliant light, lifting him above his natural capacities. He now possesses strength to look at any... (full context)

Dante drinks eagerly, and when he looks up again, the flowers and sparks of light have been transformed—he now sees the saints and angels before him. The river of light... (full context)

...he will behold the Virgin Mary. When he does, Dante sees a flaming brightness that outshines everything else, angels dancing and celebrating in her smiling presence. (full context)

...thereafter. At Bernard’s beckoning, Dante looks, his sight “becoming pure and wholly free,” into the light. His seeing outstrips his ability to see or even to remember what he sees. (full context)

...grace to convey some “spark” of what he saw. When he gazed into the eternal light, Dante felt that he saw, contained within the light, all the pages of a single... (full context)

The longer Dante gazes, he begins to perceive, deeper within the light, three mutually encircling spheres of the same size and different colors—one mirrored by the second... (full context)

Light Symbol Analysis

Light Quotes in Paradiso

Light Symbol Timeline in Paradiso