Walking With Dante

After Dante confesses his unworthiness in the opening of Canto II of INFERNO, Virgil clarifies the matter. "You're not modest. You're a coward." Then Virgil does what humans do. He tells a story. One that's almost too good to be true: about the first time Virgil met Beatrice. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we ascend into heaven . . . at least in Virgil's telling of it. Here are the segments of this...

We thought we were underway, but important things must happen first. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we start the Canto II of INFERNO to discover that the our pilgrim, Dante, is almost undone by his doubts. So he tries to play a rhetorical game with his poetic master, Virgil. To get famous, punch up! And Virgil is definitely up from this rather middling poet. If you'd like to help underwrite the many...

Let's pause to look back over INFERNO, Canto I. I'll read it through for its scope and arc. Then we'll set about exploring this piece of architecture, not just the first canto, but the whole of Dante's COMEDY. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I give Inferno's first canto a backward glance, then look ahead to the glorious poetry across COMEDY. If you'd like to donate to this podcast, to help underwrite...

In a previous episode, I talked about how Dante defines Virgil as a poet, not a philosopher, and why that was important in Dante's medieval context. But there's more to Virgil than poetry. There's prophecy. Because as we'll discover, perhaps the most important part of being a poet is being a prophet, too. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we now find out why and how being a prophet is so crucial to a p...

We meet the pilgrim Dante's first and great guide, the Roman poet Virgil. He is the pilgrim's master, his "author." Except he's also Virgil, a guy who has a limited understanding of the universe. What happens when you meet your hero and he's not what you imagined? What happens when he's as fallible as you are? Easy. You set off across the universe together. How else do humans do it? Join me, Mark...

Dante begins his journey across the known universe--except not. The journey stops almost the moment it begins in COMEDY. What happens when you set off in a new direction but have no clue where you're going? Apparently, you get blocked by the beasts of your imagination. Or maybe by more than beasts. By symbols. Even allegories. Personal, political, and/or social. This tough passage has eaten gallon...

Our pilgrim, Dante, comes awake in a dark wood. Now what? He has to walk out. But to where? And how? This fourth episode of WALKING WITH DANTE is actually the second passage we cover from INFERNO. Intriguingly, this is one of the few moments in the poem in which our pilgrim, Dante, is all by himself. The first steps of a journey are rarely in the right direction. Particularly when you don't have a...

Who was Dante? Actually, that's two questions in one. First, how did this hard-working if not formerly brilliant poet and would-be politician from a rather lackluster family end up writing COMEDY, arguably the greatest work of Western literature? Second, when was Dante? What was his historical moment like? Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I tell you a bit about the the poet's upbringing, his troubles,...

We take the first steps with our pilgrim, Dante, as he finds himself in a dark wood and starts his walk . . . through hell? No, across the known universe. He's also in a mid-life crisis. Curiously, not his. Instead, ours. It's a bad spot--so bad that he quakes even as he tries to write about it years later. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, to discover the opening lines of Dante's masterwork. If you'd lik...

An introduction to the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE. I'm Mark Scarbrough, a former academic and working author. This podcast is my passion project: to take Dante's COMEDY passage by passage. I've taught it many times. But I've always felt rushed. I want to take this masterpiece at my own speed. So here I go. No, here WE go. I'll use my own English translation. You can find mine at markscarbrough.com...