Dante the pilgrim has met and spoken with the very heroes he's always admired. These are the Guelph leaders he himself admits he has remembered with so much honor. But their rhetoric is empty. Self-justifying. Flattering. And finally, ineffective. So Dante the pilgrim dares it all and translates his anger into something far more human: sadness and connection. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for this important episode of WALKING WITH DANTE. Here, we begin to see a fundamental change in our pilgrim, Dan...
Sep 08, 2021•24 min•Season 1Ep. 91
The three, naked, oiled, burned, hairless Florentines revolve in front of the pilgrim, Dante, and Virgil. One of them starts to speak. And what a speech! Such gorgeous rhetoric! The sort he used when he was a Guelph leader in Florence. The sort all three used. The sort all politicians love. The sort that adds up to nothing. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we listen to Jacopo Rusticucci tell the tale of these three military and political heroes. More than that, they're Dante's heroes. And damned. Th...
Sep 05, 2021•27 min•Season 1Ep. 90
Brunetto may have run off like the winner of a foot race but he's far from gone from the text. In fact, the next canto of INFERNO, XVI, is in many ways a mirror of Brunetto's canto, XV. Dante and Virgil are still on the embankment, protected from the snowfall of fire, still looking out across the burning sands when three runners peel off and come over to them, attracted to the pilgrim by (of all things) his clothes. Canto XVI of INFERNO is often overlooked, but it may well be one of the most cha...
Sep 01, 2021•25 min•Season 1Ep. 89
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for this special episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE. This episode is my interview with Kristen Hook, a Dantista who is writing her dissertation at UC-Berkeley on Inferno, Canto X. She's most interested in Guido Cavalcanti, the son of the man who raises his chin up over the edge of the heretics' tomb where Farinata is having his pissing match with our pilgrim, Dante. You might want to go back and review Canto X. Or just settle in. Kristen Hook will lead us into un...
Aug 29, 2021•28 min•Season 1Ep. 88
From the get-go of Canto XV, I've told you my assumption: These are the homosexuals punished in Inferno. But am I right? I'm certainly standing with the bulk of the commentary tradition, reaching back almost 700 years. But lately, there have been challenges to this assumption. Let's look at the book that started the whole modern debate: André Pézard's bombshell work from 1950 that reassesses who these sinners are. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I give voice to my own opposition! We'll get a little...
Aug 25, 2021•15 min•Season 1Ep. 87
We come to the end of Inferno, Canto XV. We go out in the strangest ways. First, the pilgrim, Dante, wants a little bedroom gossip. Who are the other homosexuals down here with you, Brunetto? Brunetto Latini is cagey and forthcoming, all at once, about the way he's been throughout this canto. He offers three names. He turns excessively vulgar. And he reveals his hidden agenda: don't forget the books I wrote! He is undoubtedly one of the most complicated figures in INFERNO. Join me, Mark Scarbrou...
Aug 22, 2021•23 min•Season 1Ep. 86
Brunetto Latini has offered a history lesson on Florence and a prophecy for the pilgrim Dante's future. It's Dante's turn to respond in their back-and-forth conversation. But the pilgrim doesn't just respond! He recasts their conversation, not in terms of the teacherly voice, but rather one that's more central to the task of COMEDY: he responds as a writer to the emotional demands of the situation. This response from Dante strikes to the heart of Canto XV. For all of Brunetto's bravado, he has s...
Aug 18, 2021•27 min•Season 1Ep. 85
Brunetto Latini's got questions. Too bad the pilgrim, Dante, doesn't seem to want to answer them. Or better, Dante only seems to want to confess to this teacher. (Anybody who has ever been a teacher knows this gambit: ask a question, get the truth, not the facts you were after.) This is indeed the game that teachers and students play/ Especially when their roles are reversed. And must they descend to this level of competition between them? If so, Brunetto might well come out on top. He's got a h...
Aug 15, 2021•31 min•Season 1Ep. 84
Walking down the levy along the stream with his guide, Dante the pilgrim faces his former teacher, scorched on the burning sands. Or the guy the poet wants us to think was his teacher: Brunetto Latini. (Poor Virgil. He's forgotten--momentarily.) So begins one of the most fraught and difficult conversations in INFERNO. There are hidden agendas everywhere. Strange twists in logic. And a lot about the very hellish heart of the project for every writer: the quest for fame, the need to be remembered,...
Aug 11, 2021•25 min•Season 1Ep. 83
We're walking with our pilgrim, Dante, along the embankment to a stream, heading down into the depths of the seventh circle of hell where the sins of violence are punished. This levy is the feature Virgil has plumped as the most amazing yet in hell. More amazing still is our pilgrim's response to it: doubt. What's more, the poet behind the pilgrim seems to be at a different game altogether: poetic overabundance. The poet is snowing us with similes, twinning them against each other, perhaps offer...
Aug 08, 2021•29 min•Season 1Ep. 82
In this interpolated episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE, I interview the poet and translator J. Simon Harris about his work on INFERNO, his thinking about Dante, and his passion for this medieval poet. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the passion of someone who has made Dante's poetry his life's work.
Jul 04, 2021•23 min•Season 1Ep. 81
We've come to the end of this strange and wonderful canto. We've passed Capaneus. We've heard about the Old Man of Crete. We've seen the weird snowfall of fire. We've even begun to explore the natural landscape of hell with a long talk about its hydraulics. But Dante is not done. He wants to clarify those hydraulics. So our pilgrim is going to ask two questions about how exactly the waters of hell work. And we're not done with Canto XIV. We've got some listener questions and clean-up duty to get...
Jun 30, 2021•28 min•Season 1Ep. 80
Canto XIV of Dante's INFERNO is often seen as a misstep. Or at least an uneasy two-parter. First, there's Capaneus on the burning sands. Then there's this strange statue in a mountain in Crete--and an exploration of the hydraulics of hell. But maybe Canto XIV isn't the twofer we imagine. Maybe this is an intentional bit of artistic brilliance that shows us two sides of the same coin. Or better yet, that makes an elegant answer to the problems found in Canto VII. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I ex...
Jun 27, 2021•18 min•Season 1Ep. 79
We come to one of the strangest moments in INFERNO. While Virgil may have claimed that stream burbling out of the wood of the suicides was the most astonishing thing seen so far, we've never encountered anything like Virgil's explanation for the hydraulics of hell. First off, there's a giant statue. It's in Crete. In Mount Ida, to be exact. It's made out of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and terra cotta. But it's really made out of passages from the prophet Daniel, Ovid, Virgil himself, and St. Aug...
Jun 23, 2021•27 min•Season 1Ep. 78
We've left Capaneus spread eagle on the burning sands and have begun to pass into this hellish desert-on-fire--that is, the third ring of the seventh circle of hell, of INFERNO. This podcast episode is about a short transitional passage before we get to some wilder stuff. But it gives us a chance to slow down and look at Dante-the-poet's poetic and narrative techniques. In essence, our poet is always building naturalistic details on and around his own emotional landscape. Those literary moves, i...
Jun 20, 2021•17 min•Season 1Ep. 77
Finally, a blasphemer. A monk who wrote a heretical treatise? A priest who tainted orthodoxy? A run-of-the-mill atheist? Nope. A classical figure out of Statius' poem THE THEBIAD: Capaneus. Wait, can a mythical figure who wanted to take down a mythical god commit blasphemy in a Christian context? For Dante he can! Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this center passage of Canto XIV of INFERNO. We're among those who have committed (or have tried to commit) violence against God. But the passag...
Jun 16, 2021•31 min•Season 1Ep. 76
We now get a fuller glimpse of the third ring of the seventh circle of hell, of inferno, in this passage that lays out the ranks of the damned before us and helps us see the landscape more clearly. Sort of. Because this is Dante. And this is The Inferno. And nothing is quite what it seems. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we find three types of naked souls, lying, walking, and sitting under a snowfall of fire. Don't step out on the sand. It's an inferno. Naturally. Or unnaturally, since we've appare...
Jun 13, 2021•23 min•Season 1Ep. 75
Here's a fascinating opening passage of a canto--breaking over from the previous one, including quirky rhetorical techniques, showing us classical references, and offering us a glimpse of a slower pacing for the narrative as a whole. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we slow-walk through Dante's masterpiece, COMEDY. We're in Canto XIV, the seventh circle of hell, the third ring of that circle. This is our first glimpse of the place where those violent against God, the blasphemers, find their eternal ...
Jun 09, 2021•23 min•Season 1Ep. 74
On this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE, I'm headed toward the mail bag--or maybe the email bag--to look at three questions from listeners. These questions have come up over the course of the episodes about INFERNO, Canto XIII. I think they're important and interesting. One question is about my making clear the notion of literary interpretation I see in the text. Another offers an alternate reading for my outrage that souls have to breathe hard after they run through the thicket. And a final quest...
Jun 06, 2021•28 min•Season 1Ep. 73
A bush has been torn apart by a crazed squanderers and black dogs. But it's got something to say, too, just like Pier delle Vigne. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we finish off this tour-de-force of a canto from INFERNO. Canto XIII is a never-ending grab bag of surprises, none more so than the pagan wish or hope that ends the whole thing--and then a final metamorphosis, the most horrifying one in a canto full of them. There are references to Virgil, maybe hints to our pilgrim's backstory, and confu...
Jun 02, 2021•29 min•Season 1Ep. 72
Pier may have stopped speaking--Virgil and Dante, our pilgrim, aren't sure--but he doesn't carry on because through the underbrush crash two naked souls, all scratched up, trying to get away from horrible, black hounds. These are those who commit economic suicide, who squander their property until there's nothing left--and who perhaps masochistically take pleasure in the destruction of their own wealth. But this passage--so often skipped over in the commentary of INFERNO--is about so much more. ...
May 30, 2021•22 min•Season 1Ep. 71
Pier seemed to have come to a conclusion in his last speech with Virgil and our pilgrim, Dante. But he's clearly not done. Prompted by Dante, Virgil asks the shade how it got to be a bush and (more tellingly) whether it can escape. This is a passage rife with problems: Virgil's dualism, at odds with a Christian understanding of the resurrection; Dante-the-pilgrim's on-going silence in the face of his own sorrows; Pier's rhetorical flourishes which become less and less pronounced the closer he ge...
May 26, 2021•32 min•Season 1Ep. 70
Dante, our pilgrim, has done as Virgil instructed: he's torn a branch off a bramble, only to have it spit blood and air--and words! The bush is the soul of one of the great courtiers of the Middle Ages: Pier della Vigne. He's here because . . . well, if you trust him, for nothing of his doing. His speech is a tour de force of literary technique. Our poet is pulling out all the stops. And maybe starting a fire, too. Because what if you can't trust what you read? Isn't that literary suicide? Join ...
May 23, 2021•33 min•Season 1Ep. 69
Nessus has dropped our pilgrim, Dante, off on the other side of the river where he and Virgil step into a gloomy wood with thorns rather than fruit, twisted limbs rather than shapely trees. We know from Virgil's map of hell in Canto XI that this should be the place of the suicides, those who have committed violence against themselves (and their property). But what we find instead is a landscape that highlights a central problem for Dante-the-poet: How do you trust what you read? Join me, Mark Sc...
May 19, 2021•29 min•Season 1Ep. 68
Without a doubt, Canto XIII of INFERNO is one of the most astounding in the enter canticle of pain. It ranks up there with Canto V and the lustful, with X and the heretics, and with some of the ones we're headed for down the road. It's dense, opaque, elliptical, and ironic: a tour de force from our poet Dante. But before we step into the second ring of the seventh circle of hell, the second section of the violent, I thought it'd be good to pause and get some background on what's about to happen....
May 16, 2021•23 min•Season 1Ep. 67
INFERNO, Canto XII, comes to its conclusion with a "zoo" of those who have been violent against others, including Alexander the Great (perhaps), Attila the Hun (more sure), and even local brigands from the highways of Tuscany. It's been a long ride to get here: down a scree-filled slope, past the Minotaur, up against threatening centaurs (who turn out to be really nice guys), and on across the river of boiling blood. Why did it take us so long to get to the murders and the plunderers? It's a gra...
May 12, 2021•32 min•Season 1Ep. 66
In INFERNO, the question of our pilgrim's corporeality continues to dog us (and perhaps the poet). Is the pilgrim in his body? Is this "merely" a dream sequence in which he's imagining he's in a body? How "real" is his journey? Although these may seem modern problems, they in fact bother Dante-the-poet in COMEDY, forcing him to make decisions about his narrative that will eventually pay off. For if our pilgrim is corporeal, then his sense of isolation in the spiritual world can become more profo...
May 09, 2021•33 min•Season 1Ep. 65
We've come to the river of blood in the seventh circle of INFERNO, the first ring of the violent--and we don't meet any sinners. Instead, we meet the tormentors: the centaurs who fire cruel arrows at those sunk in the boiling muck. This passage has some problems in it, but none more than the opening three lines, a direct address from the poet. Why does Dante feel the need to step out from behind the curtain of the narrative right here and speak directly to his readers? He's not giving us a cue a...
May 05, 2021•29 min•Season 1Ep. 64
In this passage from INFERNO, Virgil offers us (and the pilgrim, Dante) more of a glimpse into his last trek to the bottom of hell. Here, he tells us that things have changed, that hell now lies in ruins, that the harrowing caused havoc across hell--and he descends into a little heresy along the way, quoting Empedocles, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for an in-depth exploration of this complicated passage. We don't always get the Virgil we think we should get. And th...
May 02, 2021•27 min•Season 1Ep. 63
Virgil has finished his lesson on the geography of hell, he's answered the pilgrim's two questions, and we're back to the start of Canto XI, only at the start of Canto XII. Here, Dante, our pilgrim, confronts a dangerous rockslide that leads us straight past the Minotaur, the "infamy of Crete." Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I look over so many questions in the passage. What's the point of the Minotaur right here? What's the point of such a complicated simile about an avalanche near Trento? And ca...
Apr 28, 2021•28 min•Season 1Ep. 62
