Please help me cover the costs of streaming, editing, hosting, and producing this podcast by visiting this PayPal link right here. Dante seemed so full of confidence when he learned that his dream was indeed only a dream and that Lucy had in fact carried him to the gate of Purgatory. But that was before he faced the angel guardian at the gate, whose forbidding presence seems to silence the pilgrim. Fortunately, Virgil is ever ready to answer. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we continue to watch the...
Dec 10, 2023•23 min•Season 2Ep. 70
Help me cover the costs for this podcast: its hosting, licensing, streaming, and royalty fees. (Those sound effects require royalties!) You can donate using this PayPal link right here . Dante undergoes a total transformation: from the scared guy who burned up in his dream to the fully confident pilgrim who walks right up to the gate of Purgatory. In the meantime, he asks his reader to change, too: to read the poem as fearlessly as he journeys across the known universe. Join me, Mark Scarbrough,...
Dec 06, 2023•21 min•Season 2Ep. 69
Help keep WALKING WITH DANTE sponsor-free. Please support this work by donating to cover hosting, streaming, editing, licensing, and other fees associated with this podcast. To do so, please visit this Paypal link right here . Dante awakens in stark terror. But he's beside his constant companion, Virgil. And he's a long way up the mountain, looking far down at the sea. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we hear Virgil tell about the arrival of Lucy and discover that the Christian truth of comedy is al...
Dec 03, 2023•23 min•Season 2Ep. 68
Help keep WALKING WITH DANTE sponsor-free! Please donate to help me cover hosting, streaming, licensing, royalty, and research fees. You can do so at this PayPal link here . Dante dreams his way to the gate of Purgatory using three classical images that explain his sexual rapture in the presence of divine love but also give his journey a texture of sadness. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for the first dream of PURGATORIO. Let's explore the imagery from Ovid, Virgil, and Statius, as well as Dante's ra...
Nov 29, 2023•31 min•Season 2Ep. 67
Help support WALKING WITH DANTE! To help me cover hosting, streaming, licensing, research, and royalty fees (that music costs money!), consider donating to the podcast at this PayPal link . We begin PURGATORIO, Canto IX, with a mess of classical imagery that's befuddled scholars for centuries. We won't come to any conclusions about it, other than to say that such misdirection may be the heart of the matter. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at this difficult opening to a central canto for PUR...
Nov 26, 2023•30 min•Season 2Ep. 66
Help keep WALKING WITH DANTE sponsor-free. Donate to help me cover licensing, streaming, hosting, and royalty fees associated with this podcast. You can donate at this PayPal link here . We're finally at the gate of Purgatory! And it's a corker of a canto, to say the least. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for this quick read-through of PURGATORIO, Canto IX, before we take it apart line by line to study it in the depth Dante intends. Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE: [03:16]...
Nov 22, 2023•14 min•Season 2Ep. 65
Help support WALKING WITH DANTE. Please donate to help me cover licensing, hosting, streaming, and research fees, as well as royalties for the music. You can donate at this PayPal link here . We've reached the end of PURGATORIO, Canto VIII, which means we've reached the end of Ante-Purgatory, those cantos and those parts of the mountain before the main gate of Purgatory proper. Here, Dante changes the tone completely, ending our stay outside of Purgatory proper in praise of generosity--or specif...
Nov 19, 2023•29 min•Season 2Ep. 64
Please help keep WALKING WITH DANTE sponsor-free by donating to help me cover licensing, hosting, streaming, and royalty fees associated with this podcast. You can give as you like here at this PayPal link . After Judge Nino's misogynistic diatribe, Dante the pilgrim stares at the stars. The four from the opening of PURGATORIO have passed beyond his sight; three new stars are rising, when the long-awaited snake makes its appearance in the dale of the negligent rulers. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, a...
Nov 15, 2023•30 min•Season 2Ep. 63
After Dante shocks Judge Nino and the poet Sordello with the revelation of the pilgrim's own corporeality, Judge Nino launches into a disgusting diatribe about his "unfaithful wife," a pernicious bit of misogyny that threatens to derail COMEDY . . . or at least our appreciation of it. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this difficult passage in PURGATORIO, one that must be addressed but leaves us with no good answers about works of art from the past. Here are the segments for this episode o...
Nov 12, 2023•27 min•Season 2Ep. 62
Sordello leads Dante down three steps into the valley of the kings. There, our pilgrim Dante meets Judge Nino, perhaps a figure from the poet Dante's own past, certainly a figure tied to a major character in INFERNO, and a figure who helps our poet "prove" that his journey was indeed real, not imagined. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this descent into the valley of the negligent rulers in the final bits of our time before the gate of Purgatory proper. Here are the segments of this episo...
Nov 08, 2023•23 min•Season 2Ep. 61
Help underwrite the costs associated with this free podcast! Licensing fees, hosting fees, streaming fees, music and sound royalties: it all adds up. You can donate to WALKING WITH DANTE at this PayPal link here . Still standing on the cusp of the valley of the negligent rulers, not yet among them, Dante witnesses two angels descend from heaven, the first we've seen come from the blessed realms. (The first angel of PURGATORIO is apparently a boatman between a spot in Italy and Mount Purgatory.) ...
Nov 05, 2023•29 min•Season 2Ep. 60
Help me keep WALKING WITH DANTE sponsor-free. You can donate to support the podcast at this PayPal link here . We move closer to the negligent rulers on the slope of Mount Purgatory, seated or standing about in a dale on the slope before the main gate. Among them, we encounter longing, yearning, dreaming, sadness, all at the moment of the end of the day, its death, even as someone is already anticipating sunrise (and resurrection?). Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore one of the most beautif...
Nov 01, 2023•29 min•Season 2Ep. 59
In the last episode of this podcast, we glossed (or explained) the long list of rulers who are in the darkening dale ahead of us, as well as Dante, Virgil, and Sordello. In this episode, let's ask interpretive questions of this long, difficult passage at the end of PURGATORIO, Canto VII. Some of these questions have answers; some, tentative answers; and some, mere speculation. But that's the intellectual fun of the walk with Dante! Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I ask ten questions of this tough p...
Oct 29, 2023•32 min•Season 2Ep. 58
Please help support this podcast. I have a great many hosting, streaming, licensing, journal, and royalty fees associated with this work. Anything you can give helps! Use this PayPal link here to make a contribution. We finally get to see who is down in that beautiful dale in front of us on the lower slopes of Mount Purgatory--and it turns out to be a roster of rulers from the mid- to late-1200s. These kings have mucked up the European landscape and left it in the mess that Dante finds it. They ...
Oct 25, 2023•28 min•Season 2Ep. 57
Help keep WALKING WITH DANTE sponsor-free by donating to help me cover its licensing, hosting, streaming, and royalty fees. You can use this PayPal link here to make a contribution. Sordello leads Virgil (and Dante the pilgrim, whom Sordello has hardly noticed) on to the beautiful dale on the lower slopes of Mount Purgatory. This passage is one of the first where the poet has to write about beauty. And in doing so, he has to renegotiate his position toward Virgil's great poem, THE AENEID. Join m...
Oct 22, 2023•25 min•Season 2Ep. 56
Help keep WALKING WITH DANTE sponsor-free. Your donation at this PayPal link helps cover streaming, hosting, website, and licensing fees for this podcast. Donate here . Virgil has turned the journey into his own--but now confronts not only his limits but perhaps everyone's as Sordello warns him (and Dante the pilgrim) that night is falling on Mount Purgatory. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this very strange passage from PURGATORIO in which we find out for the first time that the Elysian...
Oct 18, 2023•32 min•Season 2Ep. 55
If you'd like to donate to WALKING WITH DANTE to keep it afloat without sponsors, you can give some a little in any currency using this PayPal link . Sordello stands amazed in the presence of the great poet Virgil. The pilgrim Dante? Seemingly forgotten. Sordello wants to know how this classical poet got into Purgatory. So Virgil offers an explanation that reiterates what we know about Limbo but also redefines Limbo and perhaps causes Dante the poet to trip across the wires of his own thinking. ...
Oct 15, 2023•27 min•Season 2Ep. 54
Please help support WALKING WITH DANTE to keep it sponsor-free. You can make a donation in any currency using this PayPal link . We've come out of the invective against Italian strife and returned to the plot of COMEDY--and Dante the poet clearly wants to return Virgil to the center of the narrative's stage. But can he? How is Virgil's position negotiated and renegotiated as the damned Virgil walks on into the redeemed landscape. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I explore our return to storytelling ...
Oct 11, 2023•23 min•Season 2Ep. 53
Donate to help keep WALKING WITH DANTE on its path by using this PayPal link here . Dante's invective against political strife reaches its height by turning its rhetoric toward Dante's own experience--and maybe even his experience in writing COMEDY. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we watch Dante's poetic craft fall apart a bit and then turn back to the poet's own experience, all to find his stance as the prophet-poet he wants to be. Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE: [02:4...
Oct 08, 2023•28 min•Season 2Ep. 52
Rage knows no bounds--even in a poem as controlled as Dante's COMEDY. The poet has been offering up an invective about Italian strife and the war-torn landscape that has ruined his home. But in the middle passage of his invective, he may have finally lost all control and committed outright blasphemy. Or maybe really complex irony. It's hard to tell. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the middle of the invective in PURGATORIO, Canto VI. Here are the segments for this episode of the podcast W...
Oct 04, 2023•23 min•Season 2Ep. 51
We've danced around the notion of Dante as the pilgrim and Dante as the poet and their competing voices in COMEDY for so many episodes--quite literally, years now. But does this split in Dante hold up? Why do we allow something to occur in interpretation which never occurs in the poem? Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for this interpolated episode of WALKING WITH DANTE. I want to engage in some rather high-level narrative theory to talk about why we need to make the split between pilgrim and poet, a sp...
Oct 01, 2023•24 min•Season 2Ep. 50
Please consider supporting this work in WALKING WITH DANTE by donating to help me cover hosting, streaming, website, and licensing fees for this podcast by visiting this Paypal link here . The story (or narrative) of PURGATORIO comes to a halt in Canto VI and the poem turns into a political invective. There are interesting problems here: with metaphors, with history, with poetics, and with (perhaps) our own expectations. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I have to face my own expectations about COMED...
Sep 27, 2023•27 min•Season 2Ep. 49
Help support WALKING WITH DANTE by donating to cover hosting, licensing, streaming, and podcast fees at the PayPal link here . Virgil has come in for a bit of a whipping. But no worries! All is forgiven. Dante still sees Virgil as his liege in a feudal context, his ultimate guide. And together, they find a solitary soul on the slopes of Mount Purgatory: Sordello, a troubadour poet and Dante's second guide across the known universe. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this intriguing figure w...
Sep 24, 2023•30 min•Season 2Ep. 48
Help support WALKING WITH DANTE by covering the hosting, editing, and licensing fees. You can donate through PayPal here . The pilgrim Dante and Virgil pass on from the crowd. And now Virgil really becomes the loser. Dante inquires about a passage in THE AENEID. And Virgil answers like a prof who is caught with a question he can't answer. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the second time in COMEDY that Virgil is forced to correct his masterpiece in front of Dante. Here are the segments for...
Sep 20, 2023•20 min•Season 2Ep. 47
Help support WALKING WITH DANTE to keep it sponsor-free. Click here for a PayPal link to donate and help me cover licensing, hosting, streaming, and research fees. Having heard three stories of those who died violent deaths unshriven, Dante the pilgrim is besieged by requests from others. A crowd forms around him, all begging for prayer, including six individuals singled out from the crowd. But something's amiss. Someone has won at a game of dice--and someone has lost. Who's the winner and who's...
Sep 17, 2023•30 min•Season 2Ep. 46
In this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE, we'll read the three cantos that lead us up to the gate of Purgatory itself. These are tough cantos! It's important to hear them before we break them apart to study them. Many a reader has been daunted by what's happening here before we finally get into Purgatory proper. Don't despair. We'll get down the flow (or lack thereof!) in these cantos before we start to study them more in depth. Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE: [03:24] ...
Aug 13, 2023•32 min•Season 2Ep. 45
Dante the pilgrim has heard two dramatic speeches from characters whose deaths were full of Sturm und Drang. Now, a quiet, lone voice comes forward to tell an elliptical, enigmatic tale of her violent death in only seven lines (one of which is a dialogue marker). Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we listen to "la Pia" and attempt to come to terms with her devastating speech which has befuddled commentators for over 700 years. Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE: [01:32] My Eng...
Aug 09, 2023•34 min•Season 2Ep. 44
We come to the second monologue in PURGATORIO, Canto V. This time, we're on the other side of the battle of Campeldino with one of Dante's enemies. And we're on the other side of INFERNO, with a son whose father we saw damned with Ulysses and Diomedes. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this most surprising speech and continue to discuss the ways PURGATORIO is changing the game for Dante's masterpiece, COMEDY. Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE: [01:19] My English t...
Aug 06, 2023•36 min•Season 2Ep. 43
The frenzied souls had spoken in unison, in monophony. Now they begin to differentiate, to enter into polyphony with each other. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we hang out on the first minor ledge of Purgatory with Dante the pilgrim and Virgil, his guide. They've been confronted by a mad battalion charge of souls who want to know how the pilgrim is in his body and what he can do for them when he returns to the land of the living. One of them steps out and tells the story of his death, the first of...
Aug 02, 2023•33 min•Season 2Ep. 42
The pilgrim Dante and his guide, Virgil, have passed beyond the lazy souls and on to a group that's in a frenzy: running, calling out, speaking in one voice. The change is marked and important to understand how PURGATORIO works. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this passage from the fifth canto of PURGATORIO. These souls have died violent deaths. And they want something from the pilgrim Dante. He wants something, too. And his wants are somehow tied with Virgil. Here are the segments of th...
Jul 30, 2023•33 min•Season 2Ep. 41
