Dante, The Banquet; Knowledge and discourse for the common man

It's midweek and I should probably be cleaning but instead I'm Tipity-Typing on the computer, putting together another post. And it seems I will shortly be running out of books I have already read in the BC list. It has taken a few months, but I only have until the start of August to increase the amount I'm reading if I want to continue producing content at this pace. It has been a Godsend to have this buffer, especially over the last few months starting a new job. But, now it's time to up the anti and I've got to say, I'm both excited and apprehensive.
To my disgust I have to write most of this post twice as there was a saving error on blogger and I lost most of it.
So now I'm coming to the less known works of Dante with The Banquet. And I must say, it has been easier to read than the divine comedy as it goes down fewer rabbit holes.

Synopsis
Book 1
In the first book of Dante's The Banquet, he spends most of his time laying out his (for lack of a better way of putting it) rules for himself, as he works through the following three books. The latter half does tend to focus on his reasons for writing in Italian or, as he calls it, the "Vernacular tongue" rather than in Latin, which mainly boils down to not wanting to translate the poems to Latin for fear they will lose their poetic form. Once that decision is made, it follows that, to write the discourse in Latin would not work. He also points out that, only scholars would understand the Latin and he wants to write for a broader audience.
Book 2
This poem is mainly about love. Dante first waxes lyrical on his love for his Beatrice and he spends a lot of time proving she is in heaven with God. He then spends time on the concept of What Is Love and its parts. He ends with, how God Is Love, and how this is the Perfect Love. He spends some time on how Wisdom, which he also relates to his lady, is split into two parts, Love and Knowledge.
Book 3
Dante devotes most of the literal part of his discussion to his beloved Beatrice. The Allegorical reading that Dante proposes, centres around the Layers of the heavens. He takes the traditional seven layers and adds in an eighth as God's place or the place beyond. These layers would not be familiar to the modern reader but Dante has them relate to the aspects of the Lady and even compares her directly with the sun.
Book 4
Dante spends most of this much longer book on the definition of the noble man. First, correcting the idea that those born to power and wealth are automatically Noble as in the Nobility. He postures that it is a mix of the mans actions and a gift from God that make a man Noble, that is, not base. He spends a lot of time trying to understand the position that a man's birth makes him noble but ultimately he rejects it as unfounded. The book continues with an exposition of what good works make a noble man and what vices are missing. And finally, he looks through the ages of a man's life and what nobility looks like in each of them.

Reflection
Book 1
There is not too much to say about this first book, as, in it, Dante just lays out the rules for himself for the rest of the expositions, he puts with his poetry.
Book 2
Dante's exposition of love and how it is only by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of love that we truly know what love is and can give it out to the world around us, rings true with the general understanding held of scripture. In some ways, though it is a rose in a quagmire of Christianity mixed with Philosophy, as Dante also holds the philosophers in the same high regard, it seems, as scripture in fact he quotes them far more often than scripture.
Book 3
Dante's exposition about the levels of heaven is very interesting. First, he, as would have been common at the time of writing, thinks the sun orbits around the Earth. Second, he divided the stars into levels based on how much they move in the night sky and relates that to how close to the observer they are, which, while not exactly wrong, does oversimplify how far away the stars are.
Book 4
Dante proposes 4 stages in a man's life: adolescence, youth, old age, and advanced old age. I found a few things interesting. First, that he says adolescence doesn't start until a man is 8 months old, what he is before that, I do not know, as Dante does not explain. The other is just how late the idea of youth goes, in the modern day, we suggest youth ends around 30 but Dante states it to be 45; in saying that he also says that that is the end of the upward growth of life and the start of the downturn of old age. These words have come to mean something quite different in the modern usage.

Comparison
As I said earlier, there are a lot less rabbit trails in The Banquet than we find in the Divine comedy. Though, we do see a continuation of the veneration of Beatrice that we see in The Paradiso. I think that having read more of the philosophers would illuminate this text a bit more as they are often mentioned but I am not that far through my BC list yet. It doesn't read like a story, as we see in the
Song of Roland, and it paints a very different picture of Christianity as well.

Have you read The Banquet? If so what did you think of it?

Want to read The Banquet but haven't? Hopefully this inspires you to take the time to do so.
Get a copy of The Banquet.