This episode is an interpolated one in the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE. We've just gone beyond the last of the seven direct addresses to the reader in INFERNO. Let's look back over all seven of them to discover what sort of reader Dante imagines for his poem and what Dante wants out of that reader. Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE: [01:15] The direct addresses to the reader tell us what sort of reader the poet wants and even imagines for his work. [02:09] The first dire...
Nov 23, 2022•25 min•Season 1Ep. 211
We've come to the final revelation of INFERNO, to its climax: the vision of Satan himself, called "Dis" by Virgil (after his own king of the underworld in THE AENEID). The emperor of the kingdom of woe scares the lights out of the pilgrim--and out of the poet. Our final revelation may well be that the poet has gone as far as he can with his infernal poetics. Now he must find new words to express what's ahead. Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE: [01:28] My English transla...
Nov 20, 2022•36 min•Season 1Ep. 210
We've come to the last sinner who speaks in INFERNO. And his story is as wild as it gets. He claims that once someone violates the guest/host relationship, their soul exits their body and falls into the ice sheet at the center of the earth. Their body is then made into a puppet for a demon. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we walk through the third ring of Cocytus, Ptolomea, out on the ice sheet of the ninth circle of Dante's INFERNO. It's one last imaginative blast before the final revelation of IN...
Nov 16, 2022•43 min•Season 1Ep. 209
We've slipped on down to the third ring of Cocytus--where we find a few textual problems, more New Testament references, the return of Virgil for no good reason, and a possible slip from our poet. Hey, it's slick down here! Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we near the end of INFERNO, Canto XXXIII, passing on from Count Ugolino (sort of--one last glance) and toward the last speaking damned soul in all of INFERNO. Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE: [01:27] My English transla...
Nov 13, 2022•31 min•Season 1Ep. 208
Our final episode on Count Ugolino! Yet there's so much left to say. We're going to have to pass on from this ghastly damned soul and let him return to his savage meal of Archbishop Ruggieri's brain. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I add on the condemnation of Pisa and try to come to terms one last time with this overwhelming figure from the COMEDY, a rival to Ulysses and Francesca in the amount of scholarly ink that has been spilled on their speeches. Here are the segments of this episode of WALKI...
Nov 09, 2022•36 min•Season 1Ep. 207
On first glance, Count Ugolino's speech appears to be quite secular. He even appeals to the earth, not God, to save him and his sons. In fact, Dante has woven an incredible tapestry of New Testament references together to make this monologue. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look over Ugolino's speech as both a parody and an affirmation of Jesus' teaching. Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE: [00:59] What's about to happen in this podcast episode and a little bit about how...
Nov 06, 2022•39 min•Season 1Ep. 206
In the last episode of this podcast, we've looked at Count Ugolino's speech as a narrative arc, taking apart and looking at the ways both the poet Dante has changed the historical record and the details that may be too removed by time for us to see clearly. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we now situate the last great sinner of hell, Count Ugolino, inside the larger framework of Dante's INFERNO. Ugolino gets the longest speech in INFERNO. What's it doing here? How does it echo other parts of INFERN...
Nov 02, 2022•50 min•Season 1Ep. 205
We come upon the last great sinner of hell: Count Ugolino, frozen in the ice of Cocytus, munching on the brains of Archbishop Ruggieri. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for the first of several episodes on Ugolino. His story won't allow us to forget him. And its place in COMEDY makes sure we'll keep talking about it over several episodes. And the last line he speaks will continue to bedevil Dante’s readers forever. Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE: [02:38] My English translat...
Oct 30, 2022•38 min•Season 1Ep. 204
Dante the pilgrim and silent Virgil lead us to the most disgusting scene in all of INFERNO as one sinner munches on the skull and brains of another. This scene is the setup at the end of INFERNO, Canto XXXII for the last great sinner of hell, a figure no one ever forgets. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at some of the kinks in this opening passage and start a discussion of the nature of Dante's art: polyphony. Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE: [01:10] My English t...
Oct 26, 2022•25 min•Season 1Ep. 203
Dante the pilgrim has come across an infamous traitor on the ice sheet of Cocytus in the ninth ring of hell. Here in Antenora, the second sub-ring of the bottom of the everything, Dante finds the guy he and many others blame for the troubles of central Italy. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the second half of this conversation with one of the most despicable sinners in Dante's universe. The last episode began this moment in INFERNO. This episode finishes it off. Here are the segments for...
Oct 23, 2022•33 min•Season 1Ep. 202
We're nearing the center of the universe, a place where we can feel the weight of everything bearing down on us. Our pilgrim is showing the strain. Violent. Erratic. Our poet, too. Trying to convince us he really took this journey. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we walk with Dante and (silent!) Virgil across the final ice sheet of hell, the ninth circle, into Antenora, the realm of those who've been treacherous to their own political parties or countries (or even literary forefathers). Here are th...
Oct 19, 2022•38 min•Season 1Ep. 201
We've come a long way down into INFERNO and we'already passed dozens, even hundreds of similes. (It all depends on how you count them.) This podcast episode is an interpolated one in our slow-walk across Dante's masterwork COMEDY. Here, I'd like to look at the six basic types of similes Dante has used to craft his work (so far). Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for this admittedly literary episode of WALKING WITH DANTE. Are these the only types of similes Dante uses? Of course not! But they're a good s...
Oct 16, 2022•38 min•Season 1Ep. 200
We've come to the first subset of the last circle of INFERNO, the pit of hell, an ice sheet that start with Caïna, which holds those who've offed family members, mostly for land or money. These guys are frozen solid to their necks, the heads bent down to let their tears spill onto the ice. They're a nasty lot, although one of the damned can't help but speak up. He proves both a snitch and strangely reticent. A poor storyteller, really, who just wants to get back to his misery. Join me, Mark Scar...
Oct 12, 2022•46 min•Season 1Ep. 199
We start our trek with the pilgrim Dante and his guide Virgil across the final, ninth circle of hell, an unforgiving ice sheet, where we encounter disembodied voices, questions about perspective, pastoral imagery, and some puzzling questions about how it all works. Dante’s imagination is mechanical and full. But even he nods once in a while. Maybe a couple of times in this passage, in fact. But not in its overall effect: a nightmare of frozen bodies at the center of the universe. Here are the se...
Oct 09, 2022•31 min•Season 1Ep. 198
We've come to the ninth circle of hell. But not quite yet. Dante opens Inferno, Canto XXXII with a metapoetic moment, a passage in which he talks about the limits of the very form he's using to craft these verses. He offers up his second invocation of the poem and finds himself at a place of despair as an artist--the very same emotional landscape that makes up the last circle of hell. Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE: [01:17] My English translation of INFERNO, Canto X...
Oct 05, 2022•35 min•Season 1Ep. 197
We've walked with Dante the pilgrim and his guide, Virgil, to the very foundations of the universe, the ninth circle of hell, the bottom of all that is. All that blather about Antaeus? He's not so bad. He's just a traitor to Satan's kingdom. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we get picked up and set down into the ninth circle of hell by a giant who almost bested Hercules, who seemed immune to Lucan's flattery, and who finally betrays his master and lets the invaders in. Here are the segments of this ...
Oct 02, 2022•27 min•Season 1Ep. 196
Dante the pilgrim and Virgil walk on to find Antaeus, the unbound giant who can set them down on the floor of hell--otherwise known as the center of the earth. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we watch Virgil flail around, cite Lucan's PHARSALIA repeatedly, not get his way, and finally resort of a promise of Dante's own success to get what he needs. This passage is a wild ride of literary references. Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE: [01:47] My English translation of this ...
Sep 28, 2022•34 min•Season 1Ep. 195
We've walked by one giant, Nimrod, a mighty hunter, with his horn (like Roland). But there are more. Three, at least. Ephialtes, Briareus, and Antaeus. Figures out of classical literature who sit at the bottom of hell and pose more theological questions than we can imagine. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we continue on into Inferno's Canto XXXI, a liminal space where all bets are off. Even theological ones. And especially literary ones. Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE: ...
Sep 25, 2022•34 min•Season 1Ep. 194
Dante the pilgrim thought he saw towers in the gap between the eighth and ninth circles of hell. But no, they were giants. Who were "entowered" in the pit. And now we come to the first one: Nimrod. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we come up to the first of the giants/towers that ring the final pit of hell, a place where the imagination and history meet in a liminal spot and where all bets are off. Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE: [02:00] My English translation of INFERNO...
Sep 21, 2022•41 min•Season 1Ep. 193
Virgil has promised Dante the pilgrim clarity if they press on toward the ring of towers ahead. But then maybe they don't need to, since Virgil explains it all anyway. And even after he explains it, Dante the poet insists on the illusion of towers. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for the further journey in Canto XXXI, the liminal spot between the eighth and ninth circles of INFERNO. This is a canto of reversals, one in which the poet Dante is determined to remind us continually of his poetic art. Here...
Sep 18, 2022•27 min•Season 1Ep. 192
We've come through the ten malebolge or evil pouches of fraud, but we're not to the ninth circle of INFERNO yet. Instead, we're walking with Dante the pilgrim and his guide Virgil in one of the strangest spots in all of INFERNO: a liminal space between two circles, a spot where revelation, creativity, and even transgressive behaviors are free to roam. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as take our first steps into this canto of misperceptions and muddled historical references, a canto in which Dante the ...
Sep 14, 2022•34 min•Season 1Ep. 191
Here's our last episode on the giant eighth circle of INFERNO, the largest piece of real estate Dante creates in COMEDY. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I raise some interpretive questions, talk about why we read works of literature in the first place, and try to figure out what Dante is up to among the fraudulent. I've got more questions than answers. I hope to spur on a few in you. Here are the segments of this episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE: [01:53] What in the end does fraud mean to ...
Sep 11, 2022•48 min•Season 1Ep. 190
We have been at fraud, in the eighth circle of hell, among the malebolge (or evil pouches) and with Dante the pilgrim and Virgil, for almost eighty-seven episodes of this podcast! How is that possible? Well, partly because this circle is the largest single piece of real estate in all of COMEDY. From INFERNO, Canto XXVIII, line 1, all the way to Canto XXXI, line 6. So here's the first of two sum-up episodes. This one's a retelling of the plot of INFERNO's fraud: who'd we see, how'd we react, how'...
Sep 07, 2022•44 min•Season 1Ep. 189
Eleven episodes! That's how long it took us to get through the tenth and last of the evil pouches (the "malebolge") of fraud, Hell's vast eighth circle. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look back over this last pouch. I'll reread the entire pouch from my English translation. Then I'll pose six issues for more discussion: five discussion questions we would bat around if we were in a literary seminar together, and a sixth point that may help bring the last pouch into better focus. Here are the segm...
Sep 04, 2022•46 min•Season 1Ep. 188
We've come to the bottom of the circle of fraud and to one of the most complicated, self-aware, and modern similes in all of INFERNO. Is it connected to fraud? Or to art? Or both? Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore Virgil's stern rebuke of the pilgrim, which brings out the poet Dante, who offers us a gorgeous simile about the divided, modern self, a self in contradiction with itself, narcissistic, if not Narcissus. Here are the bottom of fraud, we find the authentic self exposing itself as ...
Aug 31, 2022•30 min•Season 1Ep. 187
We're nearing the bottom of the eighth circle of hell, the fundamentals of fraud--where we're treated to an insult contest between Master Adam and Sinon, the Greek who lied to the Trojans and got them to let in the wooden horse. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we walk with the (silent!) pilgrim Dante and his mentor, (the even more silent!) Virgil, through the circles of hell and the "malebolge" of fraud. We're nearing the end of our infernal journey. And we're about to get some very low-class comed...
Aug 28, 2022•33 min•Season 1Ep. 186
We are almost done with the tenth of the evil pouches (the "malebolge") that make up the giant eighth circle of INFERNO, the vast landscape of hell. We've met several falsifiers and have spent some time with the consummate narcissist, Master Adam--who has managed to stop talking about himself long enough to point out two more falsifiers when the pilgrim Dante asks who they are. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for this episode about the very roots of Western civilization and the Christian redemption st...
Aug 24, 2022•18 min•Season 1Ep. 185
First, leprosy. Then rabies. And now dropsy. The medieval hospital of horrors just gets worse in the tenth of the evil pouches (the "malebolge") of fraud. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we meet one of the great sinners of hell--who is actually something of an undiscovered character. Poor Master Adam. He doesn't get the love that Francesca, Farinata, and Ulysses get. But the counterfeiter Master Adam may be just as important, given the sheer amount of space Dante gives him in INFERNO. Here are the ...
Aug 21, 2022•46 min•Season 1Ep. 184
We've been to Thebes and Troy. We've seen two rabid souls arrive to tear up old Capocchio and maybe the other alchemist. But who are these rabid pigs? Impersonators. People who pretend to be who they're not. You know, most of the modern world. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look closely at the two impersonators in the last of the evil pouches (the "malebolge") of fraud in the giant eighth circle of Dante's INFERNO. Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE: [01:27] My English...
Aug 17, 2022•29 min•Season 1Ep. 183
We've come to the most complex opening of any canto in INFERNO. Canto XXX opens with two, long allusions about the tragedy of Thebes and Troy, both of which morph into similes for the damned, a medieval literary tour de force. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we stick around the final of the evil pouches (the "malebolge") of fraud, the eighth circle of Dante's INFERNO. We're almost done with fraud, but Dante saves the best for last: a canto that's part funny, part horrific, part repulsive, and part ...
Aug 14, 2022•35 min•Season 1Ep. 182
