Shows / Walking With Dante
Walking With Dante
Ever wanted to read Dante's Divine Comedy? Come along with us! We're not lost in the scholarly weeds. (Mostly.) We're strolling through the greatest work (to date) of Western literature. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I take on this masterpiece passage by passage. I'll give you my rough English translation, show you some of the interpretive knots in the lines, let you in on the 700 years of commentary, and connect Dante's work to our modern world. The pilgrim comes awake in a dark wood, then…
Episodes
- Walking With Dante
Final Thoughts About Poetry, Lust, And Meaning On The Last Terrace Of Mount Purgatory
As we pass Arnaut Daniel, the last penitent soul of Mount Purgatory, let's look back over the discussions of poetry and lust in the seventh (and even sixth)…
- Walking With Dante
French Poetry Doesn't Have To Condemn You: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, Lines 136 - 148
Guido Guinizzelli has pointed to another figure in the purifying flames of Purgatory's seventh terrace. And now he steps forward, one of the greatest…
- Walking With Dante
Sweet Becomes Truthful Becomes Poetic: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, Lines 115 - 135
Dante has found his poetic father, Guido Guinizzelli, burning in the fires of lust on the final terrace of Mount Purgatory. Our pilgrim-poet has praised his…
- Walking With Dante
The Love That Dares To Speak Its Name: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, Lines 94 - 114
Guido Guinizzelli has named himself and our pilgrim, Dante, is aghast.He gets lost in a classical simile that almost loses its sense, only to finally find his…
- Walking With Dante
Queenly Embeasting: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, Lines 67 - 93
We finally come to know who has been our spokesperson for the lustful penitents: Guido Guinizzelli, perhaps the most important Italian poet working before…
- Walking With Dante
The Pilgrim Writes His Way Into Revelation: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, Lines 49 - 66
We've seen the two crowds of the lustful on the seventh terrace of Mount Purgatory and we clearly identified them in the last passage (and on the last episode…
- Walking With Dante
The Episode In Which My Voice Breaks: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, Lines 25 - 48
Our pilgrim, Dante, may have opened his mouth to answer how he got to where he is in his corporeal body, but he's interrupted by something completely…
- Walking With Dante
Poets Make The Flames Of Lust More Colorful: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, Lines 1 - 24
The pilgrim, Dante, Virgil, and Statius walk on the narrow ledge between the flames of lust and the drop into the abyss. The penitents in the flames notice…
- Walking With Dante
The Flames And Abyss Of Lust: PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, Lines 109 - 139
Dante, Statius, and Virgil arrive on the seventh terrace of Mount Purgatory filled with the flames of lust.The pilgrim must make his precarious way between…
- Walking With Dante
The Corporeal Afterlife Of The Immaterial Soul: PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, Lines 79 - 108
Statius concludes his discourse on embryology by finally answering the pilgrim Dante's question about how souls can take on material attributes in the…
- Walking With Dante
The Breath Of Life, The Breath Of Poetry: PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, Lines 52 - 78
Statius goes on to the second part of his discussion of human embryology by following the fetus through its developmental phases until it finally has a brain…
- Walking With Dante
The Natural Process Of Life: PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, Lines 34 - 51
Dante the pilgrim has asked the pressing question of how immaterial souls can take on material attributes like leanness.To answer that, Virgil has offered a…
- Walking With Dante
Virgil's Inadequacy On Full Display: PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, Lines 22 - 33
Our pilgrim, Dante, has asked a very pressing question: How can shades grow thin? How does the immaterial act like the material in the afterlife?Virgil has…
- Walking With Dante
Hesitancy Is The Deadly Sin Of Art: PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, Lines 1 - 21
Dante the pilgrim, Virgil, and Statius begin the ever-quickening ascent to the final terrace of Mount Purgatory. As he climbs, the pilgrim has a question about…
- Walking With Dante
A Read-Through Of PURGATORIO, Cantos XXV - XXVII
Virgil, Statius, and our pilgrim, Dante, head up to the seventh and final terrace of Mount Purgatory.During the climb, Statius engages in a complicated and…
- Walking With Dante
The Compensations Of Contemplation: PURGATORIO, Canto XXIV, Lines 130 - 154
Virgil, Statius, and our pilgrim, Dante, walk along in contemplation, together but also alone with their thoughts.They're interrupted by the angel at the…
- Walking With Dante
Of Mythic Trees, Human Desire, And Ceremonial Solace: PURGATORIO, Canto XXIV, Lines 100 - 129
Forese Donati has passed on ahead of our pilgrim Dante and his two guides, Virgil and Statius. They now need to walk on along the sixth terrace of Mount…
- Walking With Dante
A Look Back Over The Entire Conversation With Forese Donati: PURGATORIO Canto XXIII, Line 40, to Canto XXIV, Line 99
We've finished the giant conversation between the pilgrim Dante and Forese Donati, complete with its interruption by the shade of the poet Bonagiunta of…
- Walking With Dante
Forese Donati's Parting Apocalypse: PURGATORIO, Canto XXIV, Lines 76 - 99
We've come to the end of the long conversation between Forese Donati and Dante (as well as others) on the sixth terrace of Mount Purgatory among the penance of…
- Walking With Dante
The Daunting Problem Of This Sweet New Style: PURGATORIO, Canto XXIV, Lines 55 - 75
Dante the pilgrim has claimed that indeed he is the one who is inspired by love, who writes what love breathes into him and then makes meaning from…
- Walking With Dante
Dante's Wild Claim About Love's Inspiration: PURGATORIO, Canto XXIV, Lines 34 - 54
After Forese Donati has pointed out five of the gluttons on the sixth terrace of Mount Purgatory, one of them, the first mentioned and a poet of the previous…
- Walking With Dante
Of Eels And Wine: PURGATORIO, Canto XXIV, Lines 16 - 33
Forese Donati continues to answer Dante the pilgrim's questions by naming five penitent gluttons surrounding them on the sixth terrace of Mount Purgatory.As he…
- Walking With Dante
Virgil's Silence And A First Glimpse Of Paradise: PURGATORIO, Canto XXIV, Lines 1 - 15
PURGATORIO, Canto XXIV, is set as a direct continuation from Canto XXIII. The poet Dante cues us to the continuation but there nevertheless are a couple of…
- Walking With Dante
Renegotiating COMEDY As PURGATORIO Nears Its Climax: PURGATORIO, Canto XXIII, Lines 112 - 133
Forese Donati has finished his diatribe about Florentine women and is now ready to hear Dante the pilgrim's story. Who did the pilgrim get here in the…
- Walking With Dante
From Lofty To Lyrical In The Prophetic Voice: PURGATORIO, Canto XXIII, Lines 91 - 111
Having praised his wife, Nella, Forese Donati launches into the prophetic voice, the new "high style" that Dante has developed, a screed with a lyrical…
- Walking With Dante
The Heroic Nella Donati: PURGATORIO, Canto XXIII, Lines 76 - 90
Dante the pilgrim and his rival/friend/fellow poet Forese Donati continue to talk about their concerns: suffering, placement on the mountain, and the role of…
- Walking With Dante
Pain, Solace, And Being Human: PURGATORIO, Canto XXIII, Lines 49 - 75
Having met his poetic rival, Forese Donati, Dante the pilgrim must make sense of the clear and present pain he sees in friend's face.This passage is a curious…
- Walking With Dante
Gluttons For Poetry: PURGATORIO, Canto XXIII, Lines 28 - 48
Dante now walks with the skeletal gluttons who have God's writing on their faces.Along the way, there are increasingly complex and almost gaming literary…
- Walking With Dante
Starved For Affection: PURGATORIO, Canto XXIII, Lines 1 - 27
Our pilgrim must move beyond the mystical tree on the sixth terrace of Mount Purgatory. So he sets off behind Virgil and Statius, only to overtaken by a group…
- Walking With Dante
Did Dante Think The Characters In Classical Poems Were Real?
Did Dante think that the characters in Virgil's and Statius's poems were real? Did he believe that the characters who changed shape, being, and even substance…
- Walking With Dante
You Are What You Eat . . . And Read: PURGATORIO, Canto XXII, Lines 130 - 145
Virgil and Statius begin to trek around the sixth terrace of Mount Purgatory but are stopped by an upside-down tree . . . that causes more questions than it…
- Walking With Dante
Going In Circles To Go Forward: PURGATORIO, Canto XXII, Lines 115 - 129
Our pilgrim, Virgil, and Statius arrive on the otherwise empty sixth terrace of Mount Purgatory. Virgil seems more hesitant. And our pilgrim, Dante, more…
- Walking With Dante
Placing And Misplacing Your Classical Ancestors: PURGATORIO, Canto XXII, Lines 94 - 114
At the end of their first conversation, Virgil and Statius reconstruct limbo. They transform it into a neighborhood where all the lost, classical writers…
- Walking With Dante
Statius, The Closeted Christian: PURGATORIO, Canto XXII, Lines 76 - 93
Statius finally tells Virgil what we all want to know: the story of his conversion. How did this Latin poet who dedicated his great epic to a Roman emperor…
- Walking With Dante
Virgil, The Damned Christian Missionary: PURGATORIO, Canto XXII, Lines 55 - 74
Given that Statius claims a passage from The Aeneid made him see the error of his ways, Virgil wants to know how this poet of the Thebes could have ever become…
- Walking With Dante
An Interpolated Episode: Dante and Irony
Since we’ve come to a moment of (perhaps!) profound irony as Statius misquotes and even misinterprets Virgil’s AENEID to find his way to salvation, we should…
- Walking With Dante
The Path To God Is Lined With Misquoted, Misinterpreted Texts: PURGATORIO, Canto XXII, Lines 25 - 54
Statius and Virgil continue their conversation as they climb to the sixth terrace with the pilgrim Dante.Statius explains that he discovered his error when he…
- Walking With Dante
Virgil Offers Up The First Of Many Misread Texts: PURGATORIO, Canto XXII, Lines 1 - 24
Blinded by the angel, Dante the pilgrim begins his climb to the sixth terrace of Mount Purgatory. But his plight is overshadowed by Virgil’s desire to know…
- Walking With Dante
A Read-Through Of PURGATORIO, Cantos XXII - XXIV
We have been a long time on the terrace of the avaricious (without knowing there's another sin punished there as well). We're ready to climb on up to the sixth…
- Walking With Dante
Caught Between Two Poets: PURGATORIO, Canto XXI, Lines 103 - 136
Statius has sung his (first!) hymn of praise to Virgil without knowing that the old poet is right in front of him. Dante the pilgrim is caught between them in…
- Walking With Dante
The Audacity Of Statius: PURGATORIO, Canto XXI, Lines 76 - 102
We finally get to know our unknown shade on the fifth terrace of Purgatory: Statius, the epic Roman poet.His salvation is one of the most audacious moves in…
- Walking With Dante
The (Maybe?) Supremacy Of The Will: PURGATORIO, Canto XXI, Lines 58 - 75
The still-unknown shade on the fifth terrace of Mount Purgatory rounds out his answer to Virgil's questions with some shocking revelations: The souls in…
- Walking With Dante
The Place Beyond Accidental Change: PURGATORIO, Canto XXI, Lines 40 - 57
Virgil has asked two questions: Why'd the mountain shake and why'd the shades all cry out with one voice?The unknown shade on the fifth terrace of Mount…
- Walking With Dante
Virgil's Classical Schooling And (Irreverent?) Insistence: PURGATORIO, Canto XXI, Lines 22 - 39
The unknown shade has been gobsmacked by the fact that escapees from hell may be climbing Mount Purgatory.Virgil explains that the pilgrim is still very much…
- Walking With Dante
A Shade Appears: PURGATORIO, Canto XXI, Lines 1 - 21
Dante is left wondering why the mountain has shaken when an even deeper mystery occurs: a shade appears seemingly out of nowhere and behind our pilgrim and…
- Walking With Dante
Fear And Trembling On The Mountain: PURGATORIO, Canto XX, Lines 124 - 151
Dante the pilgrim and Virgil have seemingly moved off even as Hugh Capet was still speaking. They're picking their way among the avaricious when they're…
- Walking With Dante
Hugh Capet's Antiphon: PURGATORIO, Canto XX, Lines 97 - 123
Hugh Capet has spent a long time answering the pilgrim Dante's first question: who were you? He now turns to the pilgrim's second question: why did I only hear…
- Walking With Dante
When The French Monarchy Makes Even The Papacy Look Good: PURGATORIO, Canto XX, Lines 82 - 96
As Hugh Capet winds up to the heights of his monologue, he comes to a most shocking climax: that moment when the French monarchy is so bad that it makes even…
- Walking With Dante
The Madness Of Hugh Capet's Descendants: PURGATORIO, Canto XX, Lines 61 - 81
Hugh Capet continues the story of his family, bringing the saga of the French (or Frankish) crown into Dante's day with three of Hugh's most infamous…
- Walking With Dante
Hugh Capet In Purgatory . . . Or Maybe Not: PURGATORIO, Canto XX, Lines 40 - 60
The pilgrim has been attracted by one soul, calling out his examples of Mary, Fabricius, and Nicholas to counter his own sins of avarice.Dante steps closer and…
- Walking With Dante
Poverty As Reward And Compensation: PURGATORIO, Canto XX, Lines 16 - 39
Dante has gone beyond Pope Adrian V but hasn't left the fifth terrace of Purgatory. He and Virgil pick their way among the many shades until the pilgrim hears…
- Walking With Dante
What The Pilgrim Can Do And What A Redeemer Must Do: PURGATORIO, Canto XX, Lines 1 - 15
Pope Adrian V has pushed the pilgrim Dante to move on . . . even though the pilgrim doesn't want to.He and Virgil pick their way through the crowded fifth…
- Walking With Dante
The Loneliness Of Pope Adrian V: PURGATORIO, Canto XIX, Lines 127 - 145
Pope Adrian V concludes his discourse on the fifth terrace of Mount Purgatory on a strangely lonely, alienated note. Perhaps this is what avarice does to a…
- Walking With Dante
The Most Bitter Pain Of Purgatory: PURGATORIO, Canto XIX, Lines 115 - 124
Pope Adrian V, bound hands and feet to the ground, sets out to answer the pilgrim Dante's second question: What's going on here?In doing so, the pope…
- Walking With Dante
A Pope In Purgatory For (Surprise!) Avarice: PURGATORIO, Canto XIX, Lines 91 - 114
Dante the pilgrim has asked Virgil--at least with a look in the eyes--if he could speak to one of the avaricious penitents, lying face down on the ground.On…
- Walking With Dante
Stuck To The Ground (Sometimes): PURGATORIO, Canto XIX, Lines 70 - 90
Dante and Virgil now walk along the fifth terrace of Purgatory, looking at the souls who are face down, stuck to the ground, unable to move or turn over.One of…
- Walking With Dante
Look To The Heavens: PURGATORIO, Canto XIX, Lines 52 - 69
Dante the pilgrim has had a "P" wiped off his forehead by the angel at the stairs. He's started his climb to the next terrace. All seems well, but he's still…
- Walking With Dante
Expecting Those Ladies Of Consolation: PURGATORIO, Canto XIX, Lines 34 - 51
Awakened from his dream by a foul odor, Dante the pilgrim finds himself fully out of tune with his surroundings: a bright new day on the mountain of Purgatory…
- Walking With Dante
Let's Compare The First Two Dreams In PURGATORIO
We've had two dreams in PURGATORIO, one at Canto IX and one at Canto XIX (although it actually started in the last line of Canto XVIII).Let's take a moment to…
- Walking With Dante
The Siren, The Lady, And Virgil: PURGATORIO, Canto XIX, Lines 16 - 33
Here's the second episode on the pilgrim's second dream in PURGATORIO. Things get wilder after the ugly lady becomes beautiful under the pilgrim Dante's…