Even at this point, at the end of INFERNO's Canto XI, we've come a long with Dante-the-pilgrim. We've walked down six circles of hell. We've also encountered lots of problems in the text, moments that need explanation, lots of interpretive knots. But I want to call our attention to the criticism of an Italian scholar who essentially says that at this point, the COMEDY has been killed with footnotes. It's a great moment to stop, reflect, and think about the achievement and beauty of Dante's maste...
Apr 25, 2021•12 min•Season 1Ep. 61
Having asked one question and gotten smacked down, our pilgrim, Dante, dares to ask Virgil a second question. And this one's much harder. So much so that even Virgil seems hesitant in his reply. Why is usury punished so far down in hell, even below the murderers? And why is usury punished among the violent? The answer, which involves Artistotle and Genesis, leads to a place no one could have a predicted: Scholastic reasoning has forced Virgil--and Dante-the-poet--to lay out a basic theory of art...
Apr 21, 2021•23 min•Season 1Ep. 60
Most of INFERNO Canto XI is taken up with Virgil's description of the road ahead, his "mappa-inferno," as it were. The old poet claims he's laid it all out with "clear reasoning." But maybe not, because our pilgrim has a couple of questions for his guide. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the first of these questions, really one about geography: Why are some people inside the walls of Dis and others outside? This passage is quite complex because it involves some (loopy) scholastic reasonin...
Apr 18, 2021•29 min•Season 1Ep. 59
We've clearly left the seven deadly sins behind. We got through lust, gluttony, avarice, and wrath--and then dumped sloth, envy, and pride in favor of heresy, violence, and two types of fraud. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the last of Virgil's lesson in Canto XI of INFERNO, outlining the map of hell. At the bottom of the pit, at the very center of the universe, lie those who have committed fraud: the sin that violates both the bond of love that nature is supposed to give every human fo...
Apr 14, 2021•28 min•Season 1Ep. 58
Virgil's mappamundi--or mappa inferno--is about to take a longer look at the seventh circle of hell, the next we'll encounter, as we sit with Dante, the pilgrim and his guide under the lid from the tomb of a heretic pope. Virgil has explained already what's ahead: injustice and malice, force and fraud. Now he's going to make a fuller explanation of force--or "violence." But this one's not a simple sin. First, it's divided into parts or sub-categories. And it's roots are a complicated network of ...
Apr 11, 2021•31 min•Season 1Ep. 57
Settled under the tomb of a heretic pope, Dante-the-pilgrim hears Virgil's first take on the nature of lowest hell: malice, injury, the heart of evil itself, all bound up in force and fraud. Mappamundi? No! Mappa-inferno! Virgil's geography of hell will take up most of the rest of this canto and provide us with an unparalleled glimpse into the poet's thinking about the nature of evil. Or is it a glimpse into Virgil's thinking? Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I rest with the pilgrim and listen to Vi...
Apr 07, 2021•24 min•Season 1Ep. 56
Dante, our pilgrim, leaves Farinata's tomb almost unwillingly--at least, he has to force himself back to Virgil and continue his journey. Something about the encounter with the heretics in the sixth circle of hell is so profound, it stops the forward momentum of COMEDY for a bit. But there's more ahead, including the tomb of a heretic pope and the foul smell of the lowest pits of hell. We're about to enter the abyss, what could be called "Tartarus," the place the poet Vergil and his hero Aeneas ...
Apr 04, 2021•29 min•Season 1Ep. 55
The answers to these important questions--why is Farinata in the sixth circle of hell and why is he damned at all?--may lie in the structure of Canto X of INFERNO. And it also may lie in the nature of the self as Dante understands it. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, in this interpolated episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE. I'll step back from the weeds of Canto X to talk about Farinata, Cavalcante, the thematics of this very wild canto, and even its structure, all in a way to get at the central ...
Mar 31, 2021•33 min•Season 1Ep. 54
We finish up our time with Farinata with a discussion that gets stranger by the minute. There's definitely a camaraderie between our pilgrim and this Ghibelline warrior. The grander question? Is there a camaraderie between our poet and Farinata? There are many strange things in this passage toward the back of Canto X in INFERNO. 1) Farinata's discussion of how the damned see time. 2) Dante's desire to be absolved of something--but what? 3) Our pilgrim's attempts to mitigate the sufferings of the...
Mar 28, 2021•34 min•Season 1Ep. 53
After the episode with Cavalcante among the heretics, a passage about human pain, loss, and suffering, we return to Farinata, our Greco-Roman statue--who becomes less so over the course of the strange, twisty passage in INFERNO. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the roots of Dante's art: What does it mean to be human? Who loses their humanity in this passage? Not Farinata, strangely enough. Certainly not Cavalcante in the last passage. And not our poet. Instead, our pilgrim may be the one ...
Mar 24, 2021•31 min•Season 1Ep. 52
Factionalism run amuck! In this passage from INFERNO, our poet (and our pilgrim, Dante) comes face to face with the suffering he himself has caused. It takes a brave writer to face his fears head on. Can Dante? Here's how it goes down: A shade rises up next to Farinata. This one's a Guelph, part of the faction that is Farinata's great enemy. This one's also Farinata's in-law, the man who married his son to Farinata's daughter. And the man whose son our poet Dante sent into exile. The son who die...
Mar 21, 2021•38 min•Season 1Ep. 51
Rising out of the burning sarcophagus, pulling himself upright, Farinata confronts Dante-the-pilgrim from the tombs of the heretics. But this is no ordinary encounter between our pilgrim and one of the damned. This is an encounter with history, with one of Dante's bitter enemies, with someone who brought about so much bloodshed for Dante-the-poet's family and faction. What would happen in hell if you met your historical enemy? The one who killed off swaths of your family? How would you treat the...
Mar 17, 2021•33 min•Season 1Ep. 50
In the sixth circle of hell, we haven't yet seen any of the damned. Instead, Dante, our pilgrim, and Virgil are picking their way along a "secret path" between the burning sarcophagi and the walls of Dis. There may be way more to this path than we first expect. It's a reference. To Aeneas. And the moment he realizes he has caused someone else unendurable pain. As our two go along, Virgil brings up the Last Judgment. But he also starts to pick a fight with our pilgrim. Or maybe Virgil calls out o...
Mar 14, 2021•21 min•Season 1Ep. 49
Finally, we are done with the fifth circle of hell, with the wrathful (and the sullen) and all that happens standing before the gates of Dis. We're also done with the seven deadly sins as a structuring device for INFERNO, because we follow our pilgrim, Dante, and his guide, Virgil, into the sixth circle, not of envy, pride, or sloth, but of heresy. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we continue our slow walk with our pilgrim through the infernal worlds. We have finally passed into the sixth circle of ...
Mar 10, 2021•27 min•Season 1Ep. 48
How long have we been standing with Dante-the-pilgrim and Virgil, his guide, in front of the walls of Dis? For ten episodes of this podcast! And now comes salvation in the form of a messenger from heaven. This has been an epic sequence. Problem is, it all ends with a big anticlimax. Guess what? Salvation was always on the way. So what was everyone so worried about? Here are the segments of this episode: [00:56] My English translation of this passage from INFERNO: Canto IX, lines 64 - 106. [04:02...
Mar 07, 2021•27 min•Season 1Ep. 47
Without a doubt, this passage is one of the densest with classical allegory in INFERNO. The references are so thick and fast, in fact, that Dante-the-poet even steps out and asks us to notice it as a giant allegorical scheme in the poem. But an allegorical scheme of what? Which part of all this time among the wrathful is allegorical? All of it? Even back to Phlegyas' boat? Or just this scene? Just the Furies? Or maybe just the threat of Medusa's arrival? Or even just the bit about Virgil's hands...
Mar 03, 2021•35 min•Season 1Ep. 46
We danced around with the witch Erichtho quite a bit in the last episode. Seven different interpretive stances toward her that can arise out of Dante's poem. That is, seven possible ways she functions in the text. Seven ways to interpret her presence, all from a single line of medieval poetry. Which at first begs but really brings up a giant question for us as we walk with Dante-the-pilgim: Did Dante-the-poet, the man behind the curtain, intend all of this? Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I explore...
Feb 28, 2021•25 min•Season 1Ep. 45
At the end of INFERNO, Canto VIII, we left our pilgrim and his guide standing outside the walls of Dis, the city of hell. Virgil appeared to be a bit afraid but putting a good face on it for Dante-the-pilgrim. Now Virgil's doubts are more pronounced. (And maybe the poet's, too.) To compensate, Virgil launches into one of the strangest moments of INFERNO, the story of his descent to the bottom of hell, conjured by the witch Erichtho, a character in Lucan's PHARSALIA. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as ...
Feb 24, 2021•36 min•Season 1Ep. 44
Virgil goes off to confer with the demons who then slam shut the gates of Dis, shutting our pilgrim out in the fifth circle of INFERNO, among the wrathful, with no way forward. But more importantly, Dante-the-pilgrim has been left alone. This hasn't happened since the dark wood in Canto I. To compensate for the feeling that the pilgrim is being abandoned, Virgil makes a beautiful promise. And something else happens to Virgil: He seems to get his own internal space. And beyond that: a backstory. ...
Feb 21, 2021•32 min•Season 1Ep. 43
Dante-the-pilgrim and Virgil have made it across Styx, leaving behind Filippo Argenti and the wrathful. They've come to the iron walls of Dis, the city of hell. These walls are more than that a geopolitical barrier in INFERNO. They're a literary barrier, too. Because this is the farthest point in the afterlife Aeneas got to. Here is the farthest Virgil's imagination could go. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we watch the poet come up to an important wall: the one Virgil couldn't (or didn't) pass. Th...
Feb 17, 2021•24 min•Season 1Ep. 42
We've been through some dramatic passages: dark woods, wild beasts, Francesca, Cerberus and his claws. But nothing so far rivals the crossing of Styx in the fifth circle of INFERNO. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we take a slow walk through Dante's masterwork, COMEDY. In this passage from our pilgrim's time among the wrathful, we cross swampy Styx and almost get capsized along with him and his guide. This passage is loaded: Bible verses, strange references, thematics picked up from previous passag...
Feb 14, 2021•34 min•Season 1Ep. 41
In almost every episode of WALKING WITH DANTE, we take a passage from (so far) INFERNO and analyze it, talk through it, look at some of the interpretive knots. But in this episode, I'd like for you to hear (and I hope enjoy) the storytelling that's going on. To that end, in this episode I read all of the fifth circle of wrath in INFERNO, from Canto VII: Line 97 all the way to Canto IX: Line 106. I'd like you to hear it as a story, as a narrative, as rising and falling action, as all those things...
Feb 10, 2021•20 min•Season 1Ep. 40
We're in the fifth circle of INFERNO. We may or may not be over a divide in the poem, over a break. Boccaccio thought so. Many modern scholars do. I hesitate, sort of do. A few don't see a break at all. I'll give you some reasons why this may not be a break in the poem--and offer you some details on the curious knots in this longer passage among the wrathful. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we walk slowly with the pilgrim Dante across the known universe--or here, set out across Styx in a boat. This...
Feb 07, 2021•27 min•Season 1Ep. 39
In this interpolated episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE, I want to give you a brief history of the manuscript of COMEDY. None exists in Dante's own hand. So how do we trust what we have. I'll talk you through some basic facts--and the weird notion that between the poet's death and the first certifiably dated manuscript, we already have commentaries being written on the text. I'll explain my stance in all this--and how the manuscript for COMEDY is a continually evolving thing. Here are the...
Feb 03, 2021•22 min•Season 1Ep. 38
Among the wrathful, the poem seems to back up and start over. While Boccaccio had a giant story to explain this break, I feel that it may be more in terms of the Dante-the-poet coming to terms with the expanding nature of the work he's writing. He needs to give himself time to slow down. And he needs to figure out his relationship with Virgil, his poetic master. Mostly, he needs to break with Virgil ("I got the beautiful style from you") to find a more powerful and deliberate poetry in the verna...
Jan 31, 2021•23 min•Season 1Ep. 37
Here's something new in Dante's COMEDY: a descent from one ring of hell to another within a single canto. Dante-the-pilgrim and Virgil scramble down to find themselves on the shore of Styx--which brings up the whole problem of the hydraulics of INFERNO. Stuck in the muck are the wrathful. And they're of two sorts. We'll talk about Thomistic notions of wrath (really, Aristotelean notions of wrath) and also the strange inversions of medieval iconography in this passage. But more importantly, we'll...
Jan 27, 2021•26 min•Season 1Ep. 36
Dante wants to know why some people have it good and some have it bad. Virgil, seemingly impatient, sets into his sermon on the goddess Fortune who controls this world. It's boiler-plate Boethius, as you'll see. But it may be a lot more, too. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we take a slow stroll with Dante-the-pilgrim and his (current) guide Virgil across the known universe in this podcast, WALKING WITH DANTE. We've come to the back part of Canto VII of INFERNO. We've seen those who hoard their wea...
Jan 24, 2021•35 min•Season 1Ep. 35
In this second passage from Canto VII of Dante's INFERNO, we get a full glimpse at the hoarders and the wasters, the avaricious and the prodigal: they're clergy, from run-of-the-mill clerics all the way up to cardinals and popes. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, on this slow stroll through Dante-the-poet's masterwork COMEDY and the first truly anti-clerical passage of the work (the first of many!). For me, this canto shows the stress the poem is under. Mostly, it shows that the poetic structure and voi...
Jan 20, 2021•32 min•Season 1Ep. 34
The Fourth Circle of INFERNO. We've come down to the great enemy: Plutus. Or is it Pluto? And why's he so great if he makes no sense and is vanquished so easily. By Virgil. Who suddenly has a more sure grip on Christian theology. Wow, a canto that begins to show lots of fractures in the poem's structure. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as Dante-the-pilgrim and his guide encounter this blustery figure and then get an overview of a bunch of guys who are pushing rocks. Dante-the-poet is full of surprises...
Jan 17, 2021•31 min•Season 1Ep. 33
Ciacco has fallen back into the muck of the third circle of INFERNO, never to be seen again--or at least not until the last judgment when the angelic trumpets resound across the universe. As Dante-the-pilgrim and Virgil make their way around the circle and then start to descend to the fourth circle, they talk about the future--maybe prompted by Ciacco's Florentine prophecy, maybe for other reasons. They talk about the BODILY resurrection--because what else would you discuss among the gluttons? J...
Jan 13, 2021•23 min•Season 1Ep. 32
