Winter
Winter - meaning Summary
Exile as Personal Consequence
Lowell’s Winter reimagines Dante’s exile as a personal, political misstep. The speaker argues Dante treated politics as life rather than ideology, so exile follows from human ties and ill timing. Images of Purgatory, Ser Brunetto, and runners suggest public contest and private loss. A chance meeting with a woman "at the wrong time" becomes the causal moment, and midwinter cold and frost mirror the bleakness of banishment.
Read Complete AnalysesIn his dark day, Dante made the mistake of treating politics as if it belonged to life, not ideology. In Purgatory, the poor souls eclipse the black and white of God. Likeness to exile warms the sun in Hell- the man running for his life never tires: Ser Brunetto, running like one of those who ran for the green cloth through the green fields at Verona, looks like the one who won the roll of cloth, not like those who lose…. All comes from a girl met at the wrong time: God and her Jove that called him forth to exile in midwintertime cold and lengthening days, when the brief field frost mimics her sister, snow.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.