Dante and Virgil make haste across the second terrace of Purgatory before they're accosted by disembodied voices, calling them to the banquet of love. Sounds great, right? Except there's so much alienation in the landscape and even in the poetry. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we take our first steps onto the second terrace of PURGATORIO with Dante and Virgil. Please consider helping to support this podcast with a donation to cover all the various fees associated with streaming, licensing, recordi...
May 15, 2024•35 min•Season 2Ep. 100
Dante the pilgrim and his guide, Virgil, have arrived at the second terrace of Purgatory proper. As readers, we're not even sure what this terrace is about, although we can infer there must be more penitents ahead. Instead, Dante the poet offers us rather straightforward, naturalistic details, a complex neologism (a new word he coined), a crazy line that has many interpretations possible, and then a pagan prayer in the afterlife of the redeemed. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we walk into the seco...
May 12, 2024•34 min•Season 2Ep. 99
Before we step onto PURGATORIO's terrace of envy, the second ledge of Purgatory proper, let's pause a moment to talk about the relationship among Dante, Aquinas, and Aristotle. We have to take this detour because Dante will increasingly incorporate scientific reasoning into his poem, changing its very nature, based on his understanding of Aristotle, which is in turn based on the work of Islamic and Jewish scholars from the Iberian caliphates. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at this complica...
May 01, 2024•32 min•Season 2Ep. 98
We've come with Dante the pilgrim and Virgil, his guide, to the second terrace of Purgatory, the terrace of envy. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for this initial read-through of the terrace, beginning at the first line of PURGATORIO, Canto XIII, and extending to line 84 of PURGATORIO, Canto XV. If you'd like to help support this podcast, please consider donating whatever you can to help me cover licensing, hosting, streaming, and web fees by visiting this PayPal link right here . Here are the segment...
Apr 28, 2024•28 min•Season 2Ep. 97
Dante the pilgrim and Virgil have a little ways to go before they finally exit the terrace of pride. In fact, Dante has to come to a surprising revelation: It's getting easier. And Virgil has to explain why: Desire is being purified. How? By erasing what God has written. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at the interpretive dilemmas and philosophical quagmires of the final moments on the terrace of pride, the first of the terraces of Purgatory proper in Dante's PURGATORIO. If you'd like to he...
Apr 24, 2024•33 min•Season 2Ep. 96
Dante and Virgil begin their climb from the first to the second terrace of Purgatory but as they do, they climb up in an incredibly contorted and difficult simile that swaps around emotional landscapes before landing them in the song of Jesus's beatitudes as well as the screams of hell. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the climb out in this most difficult simile. Please consider contributing to underwrite the many fees associated with this otherwise unsponsored podcast. To do so, visit th...
Apr 21, 2024•21 min•Season 2Ep. 95
Dante and Virgil begin their exit from the terrace of pride on Mount Purgtory. To do so, they must encounter and angel who implicitly calls back Lucifer (or Satan) into the text yet who welcomes them on their way up the less-steep ascent. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we watch Virgil reassert this role as the guide and see another of the epic angels in Purgatory. If you'd like to help out, please consider donating to keep this podcast afloat. You can do at this PayPal link right here . Here are t...
Apr 17, 2024•29 min•Season 2Ep. 94
Dante the poet adds a coda to his (fake) ekphrastic poetry on the reliefs in the road bed of the terrace of pride on Mount Purgatory. He steps back and explains the very nature of the art to us: realer than real, as it were. Then he moves the passage out from its narrative base and into a moral lesson based on an allegorical (and anagogical) reading of his masterwork, COMEDY. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through the last passage on the theory of art for this terrace of PURGATORIO. Here a...
Apr 14, 2024•18 min•Season 2Ep. 93
We've spent three episodes going over the reliefs in the road bed of the terrace of pride on Mount Purgatory. Now let's step back and look at the whole passage. Yes, its sweet. But also its curiously crafted problems. And the way it leaves us with more questions than answers, even though we're supposed to take away a very distinct moral lesson. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we run through this entire complicated passage in PURGATORIO. If you'd like to help out with the many costs associated with ...
Apr 10, 2024•28 min•Season 2Ep. 92
We've come to the last four reliefs in the paving stones of the terrace of pride. We're almost on our way to the next terrace of Purgatory . . . but not quite. Dante the pilgrim has to pay attention to these final moments, the final exemplars, some of whom are stated outright in the carvings and some of whom are strangely occluded. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look through this last passage on the reliefs in the road bed. There are still plenty of surprises under our feet! Please consider don...
Apr 07, 2024•28 min•Season 2Ep. 91
We're still walking on top of the reliefs of the prideful in the road bed of the first terrace of Mount Purgatory after the gate: the terrace of pride. Here, Dante the pilgrim sees four more figures: two from the classical age and two from the Biblical age. And the classical figures seem distinctly connected to art. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore another short passage on the reliefs in the road bed of the terrace of pride. Would you like to help support this podcast? I have many fees--d...
Apr 03, 2024•24 min•Season 2Ep. 90
Virgil has directed Dante the pilgrim to look down at the road bed. Dante sees figures carved into the terrace . . . and he begins to walk on pride, the way one might walk over tombs in the floor of a church. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the first four figures carved into road bed. Who are they? How is the passage crafted? And what can they tell us about the dualism of pride and humility? Want to help support this otherwise unsupported podcast? You can donate to help me cover licensin...
Mar 31, 2024•26 min•Season 2Ep. 89
The opening of PURGATORIO, Canto XII, becomes even stranger as the poet Dante claims that the art he’s about to see beneath his feet is even clearer than the actual events when they happened. All well and good, until we remember this isn’t God’s art, as Dante wants us to believe. It’s Dante’s. And audacious. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the second half of the opening twenty-four lines of PURGATORIO, Canto XII. Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE: [01:29] My En...
Mar 27, 2024•23 min•Season 2Ep. 88
Dante is still hunched over, going along like a dumb ox, paired up with the souls on the terrace of pride. His pride has been lanced by their monologues. Until Virgil tells him to be like the damned Ulysses. And then he straightens up and heads out. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the curious opening lines to PURGATORIO, Canto XII. Dante seems to want to have it both ways at once. But all cakes spoil, no matter how careful you are. Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH D...
Mar 24, 2024•20 min•Season 2Ep. 87
If you'd like to make a contribution to help me with hosting, licensing, streaming, editing, and royalty fees, please consider visiting this PayPal link right here . We’ve come to the end of PURGATORIO, Canto XI . . . and the end of the artist Oderisi’s monologue. He finishes up, not with more about himself, but with the tale of the third penitent we see on the first terrace after the gate: Provenzan Salvani, a bad boy from Siena who plotted Florence's demise and who also perhaps foreshadows our...
Mar 17, 2024•34 min•Season 2Ep. 86
I said we'd move on to the second half of Oderisi da Gubbio's speech . . . but there's no way we can. There are still so many unanswered questions about the way Dante cryptically inserts himself into the text, the way the art of miniaturization reflects the new style in poetry that Dante practices, and the very fact that Dante meets someone whose life is spent with manuscripts. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work our way through more questions about the first half of Oderisi's speech in PURGATO...
Mar 13, 2024•27 min•Season 2Ep. 85
If you'd like to help underwrite this podcast, WALKING WITH DANTE, you can use this PayPal link right here . On Purgatory's terrace of pride, we turn from noble Omberto to an artist, a manuscript illuminator, Oderisi da Gubbio, who delivers some of the most memorable lines in all of PURGATORIO. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through the first half of Oderisi's speech, all about the vagaries of artistic fame, the passing of Cimabue in favor of Giotto, and the coming of a poet who can kick t...
Mar 10, 2024•38 min•Season 2Ep. 84
We've come to the first penitent who speaks after the gate of Purgatory: Omberto Aldobrandesco. He's from a storied, titled family, a nobleman brought low. Or is he? Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we hear Omberto's side of the story, try to discern his character through his words, and ponder why Dante makes the first penitent of Purgatory proper so very boring. Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE: [01:27] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XI, lines 4...
Mar 06, 2024•32 min•Season 2Ep. 83
If you'd like to help out with editing, licensing, streaming, hosting, and website fees for this podcast, please consider donating at this PayPal link right here . Dante the pilgrim has heard the prayer of the prideful penitents under their boulders and now he sees them more clearly, weighed down "as if during dreams." What? It gets more confusing. Dante the poet interrupts the narrative to remind his readers of their duties (to his imagined penitents? what?). And then Virgil speaks without ever...
Mar 03, 2024•32 min•Season 2Ep. 82
Please support this podcast! Help me with streaming, hosting, licensing, and editing fees by donating whatever you can at this PayPal link right here . Dante now hears the first of the penitents of Purgatory proper. They're under their boulders, reciting the foundational of Christianity. Except they're not. They're reciting Dante's rewrite of that prayer. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for this curious passage that opens PURGATORIO, Canto XI, in which our poet has the sheer bravado to rewrite the mos...
Feb 28, 2024•41 min•Season 2Ep. 81
Please consider supporting this podcast by donating to help me cover licensing, hosting, streaming, and editing fees, as well as royalties for the sound effects, by visiting this PayPal link right here . Virgil has prompted the pilgrim Dante to look at the penitents coming around the bend on the first terrace of Purgatory proper. But Dante can't make them out . . . until the poet intervenes with an invective and the envisions these penitents as works of art. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explo...
Feb 25, 2024•21 min•Season 2Ep. 80
Help support this podcast by donating at this PayPal link right here . Having seen the intaglios, Dante is still in wonder as the first penitents round the bend. Virgil spots them first . . . and murmurs to Dante. Murmurs? It’s a loaded verb in a passage about Dante’s theory of art. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we take on this short passage in PURGATORIO, Canto X, a passage that seams the canto together . . . or perhaps reveals its stitching. Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WIT...
Feb 21, 2024•26 min•Season 2Ep. 79
Please consider helping to support WALKING WITH DANTE. You can help me cover streaming, licensing, royalty, hosting, and editing fees by donating whatever you can at this PayPal link right here . Dante goes on to find the last intaglio or relief carving in the austere, too-steep, marble wall of the first terrace of Purgatory. Here, he finds a scene between the Roman emperor Trajan and a sorrowing mother who demands justice. Demands it so much, in fact, that she and Trajan have a dramatized conve...
Feb 18, 2024•28 min•Season 2Ep. 78
After the intaglio about the annunciation, Dante moves beyond Virgil (or is prodded to move beyond his guide) to discover a second sequence, this time from the story of King David and his journey with the ark of the covenant into Jerusalem. The scene is so realistic that it causes a sensory confusion in our pilgrim. Problem is, his amazement at the realism in the art is based on the poet's fabrication of details in the scene. The imagined enhances the real? A complex game indeed! Join me, Mark S...
Feb 14, 2024•27 min•Season 2Ep. 77
Please donate to help support this walk with Dante. You can help me cover licensing, hosting, streaming, editing, and royalty fees by visiting this PayPal link right here . Dante the pilgrim and (shockingly!) Virgil have made it to the first terrace of Purgatory proper, although they (and we?) are still not sure exactly what's going on. All we know is that the terrace has gorgeous carvings in the white marble. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at the first of these carvings that will help us ...
Feb 11, 2024•31 min•Season 2Ep. 76
If you'd like to help support this podcast, please consider donating to cover hosting, licensing, and streaming fees by using this PayPal link right here . Dante and Virgil have come through the dramatic gate of Purgatory proper and entered a wildly open space, edging out to the void. This stark emptiness provides an existential contrast to all of the sound and fury that came just before. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the hard climb up to and the initial step onto the first of the seve...
Feb 07, 2024•27 min•Season 2Ep. 75
If you'd like help support this podcast by underwriting its hosting, streaming, royalty, website, and editing fees, please consider donating at this PAYPAL link right here . I hope you're ready for the climb. We've come through the gate of PURGATORY to find ourselves on the first terrace of those actually getting rid of their sins. In this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE, we'll read through my rough--very rough--English translation of PURGATORIO, Cantos X - XII, to give us all a chance to see the ...
Feb 04, 2024•31 min•Season 2Ep. 74
Help support the work of the podcast by donating to help me cover licensing, royalty, hosting, streaming, and editing fees associated with our walk. You can do so by visiting this PayPal link here . Dante and Virgil finally walk through the gate into Purgatory . . . in one of the most complex endings of any canto in all of COMEDY. There's tragedy and comedy, classical leaning and Christian resolution, emotional distress and safety, screeching and singing, tyranny and polyphony, all tied up toget...
Dec 20, 2023•38 min•Season 2Ep. 73
Help keep WALKING WITH DANTE sponsor-free. To help me cover licensing, hosting, streaming, and editing fees, please consider donating through this PayPal link here . Does Dante walk up the steps to the gate of Purgatory? Not without Virgil's help. And then we get a close view of the angel's ashy robes. And then we hear about letters on the forehead. And then we see the two keys. And it all comes down to a tangled knot, both in the passage and in the thematics. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we lis...
Dec 17, 2023•29 min•Season 2Ep. 72
Please consider donating to WALKING WITH DANTE to help me cover the costs of streaming, editing, royalties, hosting, and web domains for this podcast. You can do so by visiting this PayPal link right here . We've made it to the steps into Purgatory. In other words, we've made it to an interpretive quagmire. Seven hundred years of scholarship sit on these steps. But maybe there's a way we can clear off the dons and see the steps in a new way. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore these importan...
Dec 13, 2023•29 min•Season 2Ep. 71
