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
Virgil Humiliated, Virgil Adored: Inferno, Canto XXIII, Lines 127 - 148
We come to the end of Canto XXIII and the sixth of the evil pouches, the malebolge, that make up the subsets of fraud in the eighth circle of INFERNO. Virgil…
- Walking With Dante
Virgil Gawks: Inferno, Canto XXIII, Lines 109 - 126
We finally arrive at a moment that even our guide Virgil cannot believe.Why is he caught slack-jawed?The answer is more complicated than you might think.Join…
- Walking With Dante
Welcome To The Synod Of The Hypocrites: Inferno, Canto XXIII, Lines 82 - 108
Dante, our pilgrim, has slowed down to talk to two of the hypocrites, who are walking along in their gilded lead capes. But he gets more than he bargained for…
- Walking With Dante
The Lead Weight Of Hypocrisy: Inferno, Canto XXIII, Lines 58 - 81
Dante the pilgrim and his guide, Virgil, have come down to the bottom of the sixth evil pouch to escape the demons from the fifth. Here, they find a group of…
- Walking With Dante
A Review And Reading Of The Entire Fifth Evil Pouch Of Fraud: Inferno, Canto XXI, Line 1 - Canto XXIII, Line 57
We've been through the circle of barratry, of political grift--and now it's time to look back over this vast landscape of text in Dante's INFERNO.Join me, Mark…
- Walking With Dante
What You Read Determines What You See: Inferno, Canto XXIII, Lines 4 - 57
Dante the pilgrim and his guide Virgil appear to have escaped the nasty demons in the fifth pouch of fraud, down in the eighth circle of Inferno.But they'd…
- Walking With Dante
Grifters 1, Demons 0: Inferno, Canto XXII, Line 118 - Canto XXIII, Line 3
Our nameless grifter has proposed a game for the demons: Let's see how many more of my damned ilk I can call out of the boiling pitch for you to torment. The…
- Walking With Dante
The Game Is On: Inferno, Canto XXII, Lines 94 - 117
Our nameless barrator has a plan for escape. He's been maimed by the demons but he's not finished yet!Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we settle into high-stakes…
- Walking With Dante
Naming Names Among The Grifters: Inferno, Canto XXII, Lines 76 - 93
Our nameless barrator has been ripped open--but he's still able to do what grifters do best: sell out his fellow grifters.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look…
- Walking With Dante
The Demons Take Their Pound Of Flesh: Inferno, Canto XXII, Lines 40 - 75
Mange-Dog has pulled a political grifter up onto the shore of the boiling pitch and the demons are about to let him have it. But not before Virgil, prompted by…
- Walking With Dante
Strolling Down The Avenue With The Demons: Inferno, Canto XXII, Lines 13 - 39
Dante, our pilgrim, and Virgil, his guide, have fallen in with a pack of nasty demons who are on the prowl for any barrators who stick up from the boiling…
- Walking With Dante
Mile-High Poetics In The Service Of Rank Vulgarity: Inferno, Canto XXI, Line 127 - Canto XXII, Line 12
Evil Tail has mustered his regiment of insane demons. They're ready to start out, leading our pilgrim, Dante, and his guide, Virgil, along the cliff to the…
- Walking With Dante
Bring On The Demons: Inferno, Canto XXI, Lines 103 - 126
Dante, our pilgrim, and his guide, Virgil, have been stopped in their tracks by a pack of demons above the fifth evil pouch in the eighth circle of hell. We're…
- Walking With Dante
All About Dante And Demons
Hi there. I'm Mark Scarbrough and this episode is one of the interpolated ones for the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE. I'd like to pause in Inferno, Canto XXI…
- Walking With Dante
High Virgil, Low Demons, And The Poor Pilgrim Dante: Inferno, Canto XXI, Lines 64 - 102
We've seen seen one demon running along the bank. Now here comes a pack of them! They boil out at Virgil who is ready for them with lofty rhetoric and…
- Walking With Dante
Working Together To Make A Mess: Inferno, Canto XXI, Lines 46 - 63
The demon has thrown this sinner into the pitch, headed off to collect more in Lucca, and caused the whole horde of demons under the bridge to start their…
- Walking With Dante
Virgil To The Rescue, A Demon On The Run: Inferno, Canto XXI, Lines 22 - 45
Dante the poet has gotten caught up in his own simile, which is long, complicated, and unwieldy, enough so that it brings the plot to a standstill.But Virgil…
- Walking With Dante
Metaphors, Tautologies, And Pitch: Inferno, Canto XXI, Lines 1 - 21
WALKING WITH DANTE has been on a holiday hiatus. Now we're back at it, descending to Canto XXI of INFERNO, to the next malebolge, the fifth evil pouch among…
- Walking With Dante
Breaking Every Text, Even Your Own: Inferno, Canto XX, Lines 100 - 130
We come to the end of the fourth evil pouch, the fourth of the malebolge, in the eighth circle of Inferno, the circle of fraud. And we go out with a bang!Dante…
- Walking With Dante
Virgil And His Fraudulent Poem The Aeneid: Inferno, Canto XX, Lines 52 - 99
Virgil--and/or Dante, our poet--has already rewritten Ovid, Statius, and Lucan's poems. Now in a bit of insane daring, Virgil takes on this own poem, THE…
- Walking With Dante
For A Guy So Hard On Dante, Virgil Sure Doesn't Know His Classical Sources: Inferno, Canto XX, Lines 25 - 51
Our pilgrim Dante is crying at the distorted forms coming along in the fourth evil pouch (one of the malebolge) of the eighth circle of INFERNO. Or maybe he's…
- Walking With Dante
Poets, The Biggest Fraudsters Of All: Inferno, Canto XX, Lines 1 - 24
Canto XX of INFERNO is one that many skip. it's just too hard or too discursive or too long-winded. But others spend careers on. After Canto I, Canto XX stirs…
- Walking With Dante
A Look Back At The Structure, Beauty, And Engineering Of Inferno, Canto XIX
Inferno, Canto XIX, is one crazy canto, so gorgeously constructed, as thick as fine tapestry, woven with Biblical allusions, historical references, structural…
- Walking With Dante
Out Of Rage And Into Virgil's Arms: Inferno, Canto XIX, Lines 118 - 133
Our pilgrim, Dante, has finished his righteous rant. And after rage comes Virgil. More importantly, Virgil's embrace.The pilgrim ends the canto in the arms of…
- Walking With Dante
The Rant To End All Rants (Also, The World): Inferno, Canto XIX, Lines 88 - 117
Our pilgrim, Dante, has been talking to Pope Nicholas III, stuck upside-down in a hole in the third evil pocket of the eighth circle of Inferno, the vast…
- Walking With Dante
Just When You Think You Have Comedy Figured Out, It Breaks You: Inferno, Canto XIX, Lines 64 - 87
In this passage, we get a clearer picture of the guy stuck upside-down in this hole in the third evil pouch, the third of the malebolge, in the eighth circle…
- Walking With Dante
Popes In Hell: Inferno, Canto XIX, Lines 46 - 63
Now we come to it: the daring part, the audacious part, and (dare we say it?) the funny part.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we stand with our pilgrim, Dante, and…
- Walking With Dante
Let's Go Down Into The Third Evil Pouch: Inferno, Canto XIX, Lines 31 - 45
Dante the pilgrim and Virgil, his guide, have been walking along the ridge line of the eighth circle of Inferno. But Dante wants a closer look at the figures…
- Walking With Dante
Everybody Gets A Chance To Break The Church: Inferno, Canto XIX, Lines 13 - 30
We've come to one of the most difficult cruxes in all of INFERNO: a passage that's loaded with Christian symbolism but that also includes a bit of biographical…
- Walking With Dante
Of Prophets, Poets, And Pilgims: Inferno, Canto XIX, Lines 1 - 12
It's almost mind-boggling to see the difference between INFERNO, Canto XVIII, and INFERNO, Canto XIX.Canto XIX opens with a proem: a prefatory poem, to set up…
- Walking With Dante
Flattery And Feces, Together At Last: Inferno, Canto XVIII, Lines 115 - 134
We've come to the back of INFERNO, Canto XVIII, to the two flatterers who live down in the pouch filled with the muck from human privies.Just as a warning…
- Walking With Dante
The Moldiest, Muckiest, And Grossest Bits Of Inferno (So Far): Inferno, Canto XVIII, Lines 100 - 114
Inferno is getting grosser. Coarser. And maybe more human?We're getting ready to cross over the second of the evil pouches of fraud in the eighth circle of…
- Walking With Dante
The Fine Art Of Seduction Can Land You In Hell: Inferno, Canto XVIII, Lines 67 - 99
We're about to climb up on a bridge and look down at the other sinners in the first of the evil pouches. These guys are going the other way--and they're not…
- Walking With Dante
Pimps, Fraud, And Metamorphosis: Inferno, Canto XVIII, Lines 40 - 66
The first evil pouch. And a long podcast episode on WALKING WITH DANTE.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we walk along the rim of the first of the evil pouches in…
- Walking With Dante
Our First Glimpse Of Old-School Demons: Inferno, Canto XVIII, Lines 22 - 39
We're starting to walk along the first of the evil pouches with our pilgrim and his guide, Virgil. Down below, naked people are being whipped by horned demons…
- Walking With Dante
Welcome To The Eighth Circle Of Hell: Inferno, Canto XVIII, Lines 1 - 21
We've passed the midway point in INFERNO. Halfway done! Yet we only have two circles left. We're about to enter the biggest circle of them all, the one that…
- Walking With Dante
A Look Back Over The Seventh Circle Of Hell In Dante's COMEDY
We've spent over forty (!) episodes of this podcast slow-walking through the seventh circle of INFERNO, among the sins of violence. We've been here a long…
- Walking With Dante
Flying By The Seat Of Your Pants (Also, Geryon): Inferno, Canto XVII, Lines 100 - 134
We've come to the middle of INFERNO and the last bits of canto XVII. We've come to a tour de force of the imagination and a minor (foreshadowing?) comedic…
- Walking With Dante
Buck Up, It's Geryon (And Modern Narrative Techniques): Inferno, Canto XVII, Lines 79 - 99
Our pilgrim walks back from the usurers, sitting out on the edge of the seventh circle of INFERNO, and finds that he must climb aboard the awful beast of…
- Walking With Dante
The Poetics Of Color And Usury: Inferno, Canto XVII, Lines 46 - 78
We've come to what Dantista Chivacci Leonardi calls "the most colorful" bits of Dante's INFERNO. We've come to the usurers, sitting on the brink of the seventh…
- Walking With Dante
Poet And Pilgrim, Walking Alone Along The Cliff: Inferno, Canto XVII, Lines 28 - 45
The beast of fraud has breached. And Virgil's got some negotiating to do. So he sends Dante the pilgrim alone along the edge of the cliff to see the sinners…
- Walking With Dante
Behold The Beast Of Fraud And Poetic Technique: Inferno, Canto XVII, Lines 1 - 27
Canto XVII of INFERNO is often seen as a transitional canto, the way we get from the seventh circle of the violent to the eighth circle of the fraudulent. But…
- Walking With Dante
Laying My Cards On The Table: How I Read Dante's Comedy
And by "read," as in the way it's used in literary studies, I mean "interpret."We've come through some tough passages, so I thought it would be useful to lay…
- Walking With Dante
Swearing The Truth About The Beast Of Fraud: Inferno, Canto XVI, Lines 124 - 136
Well, we've come to it. The moment of truth. Or fraud. And what if they're the same thing? Or similar things?Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for a corker of a…
- Walking With Dante
Cords, Leopards, Medieval Poets, And Medieval Pilgrims, All Straightened Out By Classical Poetry: Inferno, Canto XVI, Lines 106 - 123
Dante's COMEDY is about to shift gears. It's going to change its relationship to the poetry of the past. It's going to become more complicated in its symbolism…
- Walking With Dante
Tumbling Over A Simile About A Waterfall: Inferno, Canto XVI, Lines 91 - 105
We're going to slow up even more and take one long look at a very complicated fifteen lines that include a twelve-line simile about the waterfall ahead of…
- Walking With Dante
Civic Unity, Truth-Telling, And (Not) Making A Difference In Hell: Inferno, Canto XVI, Lines 79 - 90
We've come to the last passage on our three Guelph heroes, circling each other on the burning sands of the seventh circle of hell, the violent--and…
- Walking With Dante
Stopping The Mouth Of History With The Words Of A Prophet: Inferno, Canto XVI, Lines 64 - 78
Dante the pilgrim is still looking down on the three Florentine, Guelph heroes, circling each other on the burning sands. They've got no forward momentum. But…
- Walking With Dante
The Answer To Dashed Hopes Is Far Harder Than Anger: Inferno, Canto XVI, Lines 46 - 63
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…
- Walking With Dante
When History Speaks, It Doesn't Always Tell The Truth: Inferno, Canto XVI, Lines 28 - 45
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…
- Walking With Dante
Brunetto Is Gone But Not Forgotten On The Burning Sands: Inferno, Canto XVI, Lines 1 - 27
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…
- Walking With Dante
An Interview with Kristen Hook, A Dantista Writing Her Dissertation On Inferno, Canto X
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…
- Walking With Dante
Are These Really The Homosexuals Punished In Inferno, Canto XV?
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…
- Walking With Dante
Gossip, Ambivalence, And The Strangeness of Virgil's Presence: Inferno, Canto XV, Lines 100 - 124
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…
- Walking With Dante
A Pilgrim Walking Across Hell? Not Really. More Like A Writer: Inferno, Canto XV, Lines 79 - 99
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…
- Walking With Dante
Unanswered Questions and Unasked-For Prophecies: Inferno, Canto XV, Lines 46 - 78
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…
- Walking With Dante
The Fourth Great Sinner Of Hell, Brunetto Latini: Inferno, Canto XV, Lines 25 - 45
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…
- Walking With Dante
The Long View Across The Burning Sands: Inferno, Canto XV, Lines 1 - 24
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…
- Walking With Dante
An Interview with the poet and novelist J. Simon Harris, a translator of Dante's INFERNO
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…
- Walking With Dante
Exploring A Coda To A Canto And Cleaning Up The Canto As A Whole: Inferno, Canto XIV, Lines 121 - 142
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…