Walking With Dante

We've come to the final revelation of INFERNO, to its climax: the vision of Satan himself, called "Dis" by Virgil (after his own king of the underworld in THE AENEID). The emperor of the kingdom of woe scares the lights out of the pilgrim--and out of the poet. Our final revelation may well be that the poet has gone as far as he can with his infernal poetics. Now he must find new words to express w...

We've come to the last sinner who speaks in INFERNO. And his story is as wild as it gets. He claims that once someone violates the guest/host relationship, their soul exits their body and falls into the ice sheet at the center of the earth. Their body is then made into a puppet for a demon. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we walk through the third ring of Cocytus, Ptolomea, out on the ice sheet of th...

We've slipped on down to the third ring of Cocytus--where we find a few textual problems, more New Testament references, the return of Virgil for no good reason, and a possible slip from our poet. Hey, it's slick down here! Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we near the end of INFERNO, Canto XXXIII, passing on from Count Ugolino (sort of--one last glance) and toward the last speaking damned soul in all...

Our final episode on Count Ugolino! Yet there's so much left to say. We're going to have to pass on from this ghastly damned soul and let him return to his savage meal of Archbishop Ruggieri's brain. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I add on the condemnation of Pisa and try to come to terms one last time with this overwhelming figure from the COMEDY, a rival to Ulysses and Francesca in the amount of s...

On first glance, Count Ugolino's speech appears to be quite secular. He even appeals to the earth, not God, to save him and his sons. In fact, Dante has woven an incredible tapestry of New Testament references together to make this monologue. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look over Ugolino's speech as both a parody and an affirmation of Jesus' teaching. Here are the segments of this episode of W...

In the last episode of this podcast, we've looked at Count Ugolino's speech as a narrative arc, taking apart and looking at the ways both the poet Dante has changed the historical record and the details that may be too removed by time for us to see clearly. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we now situate the last great sinner of hell, Count Ugolino, inside the larger framework of Dante's INFERNO. Ugol...

We come upon the last great sinner of hell: Count Ugolino, frozen in the ice of Cocytus, munching on the brains of Archbishop Ruggieri. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for the first of several episodes on Ugolino. His story won't allow us to forget him. And its place in COMEDY makes sure we'll keep talking about it over several episodes. And the last line he speaks will continue to bedevil Dante’s reade...

Dante the pilgrim and silent Virgil lead us to the most disgusting scene in all of INFERNO as one sinner munches on the skull and brains of another. This scene is the setup at the end of INFERNO, Canto XXXII for the last great sinner of hell, a figure no one ever forgets. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at some of the kinks in this opening passage and start a discussion of the nature of Dante...

Dante the pilgrim has come across an infamous traitor on the ice sheet of Cocytus in the ninth ring of hell. Here in Antenora, the second sub-ring of the bottom of the everything, Dante finds the guy he and many others blame for the troubles of central Italy. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the second half of this conversation with one of the most despicable sinners in Dante's universe. Th...

We're nearing the center of the universe, a place where we can feel the weight of everything bearing down on us. Our pilgrim is showing the strain. Violent. Erratic. Our poet, too. Trying to convince us he really took this journey. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we walk with Dante and (silent!) Virgil across the final ice sheet of hell, the ninth circle, into Antenora, the realm of those who've been...

We've come a long way down into INFERNO and we'already passed dozens, even hundreds of similes. (It all depends on how you count them.) This podcast episode is an interpolated one in our slow-walk across Dante's masterwork COMEDY. Here, I'd like to look at the six basic types of similes Dante has used to craft his work (so far). Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for this admittedly literary episode of WAL...

We've come to the first subset of the last circle of INFERNO, the pit of hell, an ice sheet that start with Caïna, which holds those who've offed family members, mostly for land or money. These guys are frozen solid to their necks, the heads bent down to let their tears spill onto the ice. They're a nasty lot, although one of the damned can't help but speak up. He proves both a snitch and strangel...

We start our trek with the pilgrim Dante and his guide Virgil across the final, ninth circle of hell, an unforgiving ice sheet, where we encounter disembodied voices, questions about perspective, pastoral imagery, and some puzzling questions about how it all works. Dante’s imagination is mechanical and full. But even he nods once in a while. Maybe a couple of times in this passage, in fact. But no...

We've come to the ninth circle of hell. But not quite yet. Dante opens Inferno, Canto XXXII with a metapoetic moment, a passage in which he talks about the limits of the very form he's using to craft these verses. He offers up his second invocation of the poem and finds himself at a place of despair as an artist--the very same emotional landscape that makes up the last circle of hell. Here are the...

We've walked with Dante the pilgrim and his guide, Virgil, to the very foundations of the universe, the ninth circle of hell, the bottom of all that is. All that blather about Antaeus? He's not so bad. He's just a traitor to Satan's kingdom. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we get picked up and set down into the ninth circle of hell by a giant who almost bested Hercules, who seemed immune to Lucan's f...

Dante the pilgrim and Virgil walk on to find Antaeus, the unbound giant who can set them down on the floor of hell--otherwise known as the center of the earth. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we watch Virgil flail around, cite Lucan's PHARSALIA repeatedly, not get his way, and finally resort of a promise of Dante's own success to get what he needs. This passage is a wild ride of literary references....

We've walked by one giant, Nimrod, a mighty hunter, with his horn (like Roland). But there are more. Three, at least. Ephialtes, Briareus, and Antaeus. Figures out of classical literature who sit at the bottom of hell and pose more theological questions than we can imagine. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we continue on into Inferno's Canto XXXI, a liminal space where all bets are off. Even theologic...

Dante the pilgrim thought he saw towers in the gap between the eighth and ninth circles of hell. But no, they were giants. Who were "entowered" in the pit. And now we come to the first one: Nimrod. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we come up to the first of the giants/towers that ring the final pit of hell, a place where the imagination and history meet in a liminal spot and where all bets are off. He...

Virgil has promised Dante the pilgrim clarity if they press on toward the ring of towers ahead. But then maybe they don't need to, since Virgil explains it all anyway. And even after he explains it, Dante the poet insists on the illusion of towers. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for the further journey in Canto XXXI, the liminal spot between the eighth and ninth circles of INFERNO. This is a canto of r...

We've come through the ten malebolge or evil pouches of fraud, but we're not to the ninth circle of INFERNO yet. Instead, we're walking with Dante the pilgrim and his guide Virgil in one of the strangest spots in all of INFERNO: a liminal space between two circles, a spot where revelation, creativity, and even transgressive behaviors are free to roam. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as take our first st...

Here's our last episode on the giant eighth circle of INFERNO, the largest piece of real estate Dante creates in COMEDY. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I raise some interpretive questions, talk about why we read works of literature in the first place, and try to figure out what Dante is up to among the fraudulent. I've got more questions than answers. I hope to spur on a few in you. Here are the seg...

We have been at fraud, in the eighth circle of hell, among the malebolge (or evil pouches) and with Dante the pilgrim and Virgil, for almost eighty-seven episodes of this podcast! How is that possible? Well, partly because this circle is the largest single piece of real estate in all of COMEDY. From INFERNO, Canto XXVIII, line 1, all the way to Canto XXXI, line 6. So here's the first of two sum-up...

Eleven episodes! That's how long it took us to get through the tenth and last of the evil pouches (the "malebolge") of fraud, Hell's vast eighth circle. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look back over this last pouch. I'll reread the entire pouch from my English translation. Then I'll pose six issues for more discussion: five discussion questions we would bat around if we were in a literary seminar...

We've come to the bottom of the circle of fraud and to one of the most complicated, self-aware, and modern similes in all of INFERNO. Is it connected to fraud? Or to art? Or both? Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore Virgil's stern rebuke of the pilgrim, which brings out the poet Dante, who offers us a gorgeous simile about the divided, modern self, a self in contradiction with itself, narcissi...

We're nearing the bottom of the eighth circle of hell, the fundamentals of fraud--where we're treated to an insult contest between Master Adam and Sinon, the Greek who lied to the Trojans and got them to let in the wooden horse. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we walk with the (silent!) pilgrim Dante and his mentor, (the even more silent!) Virgil, through the circles of hell and the "malebolge" of fr...