Walking With Dante

Poor Virgil, put in his place over and over again, ever since the fourth of the malebolge, the evil pouch of the fortune tellers, when he had to rewrite his own epic, THE AENEID. Four cantos of humiliation! He's now had his final humiliation (for now) as he's learned that he shouldn't have ever trusted those demons. But the journey must go on! How? In those dear footprints we saw at the end of Can...

Hi, I'm Mark Scarbrough and this is the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE. In most episodes of this podcast, we slow-walk passage by passage through Dante's masterwork, COMEDY. But this is an interpolated episode, brought about because of several conversations I've had online with people recently. The question is this: How can I, an atheist, read Dante's COMEDY? I thought I'd answer that problem as well...

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 has already seen something that has left him gawking, maybe even a representation of his own fate. But Virgil's humiliations aren't over. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for the final moments among the hypocrites in hell. There's more to come as th...

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 me, Mark Scarbrough, as we find that the sixth pit of the subsets of fraud is not just about friars walking around in gilded, leaden cloaks. Rather, it's also about the punishment of figures from the New Testament. In other words, we've co...

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. He meets some guys who caused much of the chaos in Florence that ruined our poet's life. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we slow-walk with our pilgrim through the rings of hell. We've come to a new place, the "collegio" of the hypocrites, but...

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 guys in cowls or capes that look sort of like the ones from the abbey at Cluny but that are in fact made out of gilded lead. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we settle into the bottom of the sixth of the malebolge of fraud in the eighth circle of...

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 Scarbrough, as I read the entire passage: from Inferno, Canto XXI, line 1 all the way through Canto XXIII, line 57. This is my translation. You can find it in bits and pieces on my website, markscarbough.com . But I'd rather you just sit b...

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 better get a move on! The demons are coming fast! How do they know? Because Dante's read a lot. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as the sequences about barratry all come down to meta-literary fantasia on texts, reading, writing, and knowing the world...

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 demons back off, he gets ready, and he leaps away to his safety. The demons then go nuts, while Dante, our pilgrim, and Virgil, his guide, sneak away. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this dramatic passage at the end of Inferno Canto X...

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 gamesmanship in the fifth of the malebolge (or "evil pouches) in the huge landscape of the eighth circle of INFERNO, the hell of fraud. Things are getting tricky. For this political grifter. For Dante and Virgil. For the demons. And even for...

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 at a passage from the fifth of the malebolge, the evil pouches, that make up the eighth circle of fraud in INFERNO. We're among the political grifters--and this one, forked up by the demons, is a particularly oily fellow. Here are the segme...

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 our pilgrim Dante, asks him a few questions. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this incredibly violent passage from the fifth of the malebolge, the evil pouches, that make up the eighth circle of fraud in INFERNO. Things are about to...

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 pitch in the fifth evil pouch in the circle of fraud. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we get super literary with this rather simple passage and begin to try to answer the most pressing question for Dante: how do you make your fraudulent story seem...

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 next available bridge. Yet our pilgrim has some quibbles. As well he should have. And Virgil is confident. As well he should be. And the whole thing collapses into irony along with the most adolescent humor in COMEDY. Join me, Mark Scarbrough,...

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 in the rings of fraud, the largest landscape in Inferno. And we're standing over the political grifters who are sunk in boiling pitch. The damned sure have it bad. Maybe Virgil and Dante, too. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as one of the 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, before we move on to its end and into Canto XXII to talk about demons in Dante's INFERNO: who they are, why they are, and how they function. No passage from COMEDY in this episode. Just a little to give you some background about Dante's demons...

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 misplaced trust. And even a little contempt for the pilgrim Dante. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I walk through this incredibly dramatic passage from the fifth of the evil pouches (or malebolge) in the eighth circle of INFERNO with its many rings of...

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 low-comedy, high-violence act. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore more of Canto XXI, more from the fifth evil pouch in the eighth circle of fraud, the longest and more complex part of INFERNO. We're among the the sinners on the political ta...

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 to the rescue! The classical poet gets us back to the plot. And what a plot it is! Here comes the first old-school demon we've fully seen, the old medieval morality play demon, the one that's probably lurking under your bed. He's got a grift...

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 the sins of fraud. The opening of Canto XXI is as self-conscious as most of these in the sub-circles of fraud. This time, however, the poet names his work (for the second and last time), turns super coy, and offers a lot of metaphoric blather...

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 disses Virgil (who has already dissed Dante). Virgil rewrites yet one more classical story. We get a load of contemporary, sad-sack fortunetellers. And then Dante quotes himself to let us know that every text can be broken, even his own. J...

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 AENEID. He retells the story of the founding of Mantua, rewriting the version he tells in his own poem inside of Dante's poem, and then daring us then to call his own poem fraudulent. This passage may be one of the most striking smacks against Vi...

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 crying because he knows the future: Classical texts are about to get wrecked. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this difficult passage in which Virgil is super hard on Dante, the pilgrim, and then Virgil himself misquotes his classical...

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 some of the most in-depth commentary of any in INFERNO. What gives? We should probably take our cue from our poet: we're about to enter the meta space of a canto about poetry, all among the fraudsters, with Dante and even Virgil out in front...

Inferno, Canto XIX, is one crazy canto, so gorgeously constructed, as thick as fine tapestry, woven with Biblical allusions, historical references, structural idiosyncrasies, and even one glaring fault. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I look back over Inferno, Canto XIX, one of the finest Dante wrote for this part of Comedy. I'll offer some general assessments, goad you on to think more deeply about...