ABSTRACT
Dante the Pilgrim, the protagonist of the poem, is to be distinguished from Dante Alighieri the Author, for the Pilgrim sees everything freshly, for the first time, learning and changing as he goes; while the Author in some sense knows the whole journey in advance. Cantos 15 through 18 are sometimes called the doctrinal cantos, because it is here that Dante's abstract moral schemes, which he used in constructing the Mount of Purgatory, may be studied. The poetic-dramatic unity of canto 15 is very striking on a first reading. The chief intellectual content of the canto is of course Virgil's 'light': his resumption and development of the insights in cantos 13 and 14. According to the literal story of the climb, the Pilgrim reaches the realm of the repentant angry when he is overwhelmed by his visions of gentleness, near the end of canto 15.
