Commentary Purg XXXI 34-36

Finally Dante confesses, summarizing his transgressions as delight in false things set before him after Beatrice was dead.  Exactly what these pleasures were is a question that greatly exercises Dante scholars.  It does seem clear that they are presented in so vague and encompassing a way as to allow two primary interpretations, that is, both carnal and intellectual divagations from the love he owed God, awakened in him by Beatrice.