Walking With Dante

We've been through some dramatic passages: dark woods, wild beasts, Francesca, and Cerberus. But nothing rivals the crossing of (river? swamp?) Styx in the fifth circle of INFERNO. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we take a slow walk through this passage about our pilgrim Dante's time among the wrathful. We'll ferry across and almost get capsized along with him and Virgil. This passage is loaded: Bibl...

In almost every episode of WALKING WITH DANTE, we take a passage from (so far) INFERNO and analyze it, talk through it, and look at some of the interpretive knots. But in this episode, I'd like for you to hear the storytelling. To that end, I read all of the fifth circle of wrath in INFERNO, from Canto VII: Line 97 all the way to Canto IX: Line 106. I'd like you to hear it as a story, a narrative,...

The fifth circle of INFERNO: wrath (and its counterpart to come). We may or may not be over a break in the poem. Boccaccio thought so. Many modern scholars do not. I'll give you some reasons why this passage may not be a break in COMEDY. Plus, we'll talk about the uneasy balance between the classical and Christian worlds, starting with Phlegyas, the boatman over this swampy muck. And we'll discove...

In this interpolated episode, I want to give you a brief history of the manuscript of COMEDY. None exists in Dante's own hand. So how do we trust what we have? I'll talk you through some basic facts, as well as the strange notion that we already have commentaries written on COMEDY between the poet's death and the first certifiably dated manuscript. I'll explain how the manuscript for COMEDY is a c...

With the wrathful, COMEDY seems to back up and start over. Although Boccaccio had a story to explain this break, its rationale may be more in terms of the the poet's coming to terms with the expanding nature of his work. He needs to give himself time to slow down. And he needs to figure out his relationship with Virgil, his poetic master. Mostly, he needs to break with Virgil ("I got the beautiful...

Here's something new: a descent from one ring to another within a single canto. Our pilgrim and Virgil scramble down to find themselves on the shore of Styx. Stuck in the muck are the wrathful . . . and of two sorts. Let's talk about Thomistic notions of wrath (or Aristotelean notions of wrath) and the strange inversions of medieval iconography. But more importantly, what's up with Virgil, who see...

Dante wants to know why some people have it good and some, bad. Virgil, seemingly impatient, sets into his sermon on the goddess Fortune who controls this world. It's boiler-plate Boethius . . . but may be a lot more, too. We've come to the back part of Canto VII of INFERNO. We've seen those who hoard their wealth and those who spend too much. And Virgil's got some sort of answer. Trouble is, it's...

We finally get a glimpse at the hoarders and the wasters, the avaricious and the prodigal. They're mostly clergy, from run-of-the-mill clerics all the way up to popes. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for the first truly anti-clerical passage of COMEDY. INFERNO, Canto VII shows the stress the poem is under. It also shows that the poetic structure and voice need to change for the poet to find the right mi...

We descend a level of hell and 'come to the "il gran nemico," the great enemy: Plutus. But why is he so great if he makes babbles nonsense and is easily vanquished? And by Virgil? Who also suddenly has a better grip on Christian theology. INFERNO, Canto VI, begins with lots of fractures! Is our poet in over his head? Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as our pilgrim, Dante, and his guide encounter this blu...

Ciacco has fallen back into the muck, never to be seen again--at least not until the last judgment. As the pilgrim and Virgil start to descend to the fourth circle, they talk about that future. They talk about the BODILY resurrection--because what else would you discuss among the gluttons? Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we listen to Virgil get the future wrong yet correctly assess the end of time it...

In the last passage, Ciacco the glutton seemed to have come to a halt in his conversation. But our pilgrim has not had enough. He prompts this damned shade for more. And more. Until he finds out the future of Florence. The very near future. Ciacco is not only a glutton; he’s also a future-teller, a strange prophet perhaps, sunk in the muck of the third circle of hell. Consider supporting this work...

In the third circle of hell, our pilgrim finds an emblematic glutton, Ciacco. This strange soul offers us a few problems. He mixes gluttony with another sin, thereby complicating the structure of the rings of hell in Dante's poem (and maybe of theology itself). Ciacco is the first damned soul to recognize our pilgrim by the dialect he speaks. We've stepped down into the muck of gluttony--and myste...

Our pilgrim wakes up in the weather of the third circle of hell: hail, rain, and snow, making the ground a rancid swamp. But wait, wakes up? How'd he get there? In any event, he and Virgil soon come to the guard dog Cerberus. Virgil doesn't try his word spell this time. Instead, he does something wilder: he rewrites his own work, THE AENEID. Let's take a first look at the third circle of hell, a p...

Francesca has long been a subject of fierce debate. By the mid-nineteenth century, she had been turned into an almost Byronic hero. Maybe the truth of the matter is that she's bigger than her sin. Not in a "Romantic heroine" sort of way. Maybe she escapes the poet who gives her a voice. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I explore Francesca's speech in Canto V of Dante's INFERNO. Maybe Francesca does th...

Dante, our pilgrim, calls the two who are light on the winds of lust to float down to him. When they arrive, he gets more than he bargained for. Francesca (with her Paolo) proves the greatest danger yet to the pilgrim. Francesca's self-narrated "novelle" of her damnation is a master class in manipulation. Or at least so I'll see it in this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE, in which I present the case...

The pilgrim, Dante, has just asked his guide who is tossed in lust's whirlwind. Virgil answers with a list of the "greats" out on the wind: figures from antiquity, the Trojan War, and even medieval romance. In so doing, Virgil redefines lust into something socially disruptive. Then both he and the pilgrim (plus maybe our poet in the background) make a crucial mistake: They confuse love and lust. J...

Our pilgrim, Dante, turns from Minos to discover the hellish hurricane that's the punishment of lustful. It's hard to miss the lush language in this passage: verdant, almost overgrown, especially in a beautiful, double simile . . . which sets up the problems ahead. Who are the lustful? What is the root of their sin? And what is our poet up to with these grand similes? Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as...

Seven deadly sins: They almost seem like a cliché these days. But here they are: lust, gluttony, sloth, avarice, anger, pride, and envy. It wasn't always so in Christian doctrine. Nor in fact is it so for Dante. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, in this interpolated episode as I explore some of the history of the question of which sins got labeled deadly--and why there are seven of them. Support this podc...

We've walked to the second circle of hell, where the winds of lust howl. But not yet. First, we must meet a connoisseur of sin: Minos. He determines your circle of hell. Not Jesus. Not Satan. But a figure from classical mythology. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we push farther into hell but also further into irony, opacity, and puzzlement. Or to put it another way, is Virgil a sure guide for our pil...

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I look back over the first four cantos of INFERNO with an overview of where we've been and a discussion of the structure of the poem, COMEDY. I'll talk about some of the architectural details of the work, the ways that the reading of COMEDY may be more complex than you might imagine, and the reasons Limbo is so strange in Dante's masterwork. To support this podcast, us...

Our pilgrim, Dante, gets to a vantage point where he can look across the "enameled" green to see the crowd gathered in and around Limbo's castle. He then lists off the greats: Trojans, Romans, Caesar, Aristotle, even pre-Socratic thinkers. Problem is, our poet didn't know many of these thinkers and writers except by name. He only knew of Plato by an incomplete translation of one minor work. What's...

We follow our pilgrim, Dante, into Limbo. He sees four great shades coming toward him: Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan. They welcome Virgil back and do something more shocking: They admit Dante to their company. Then it gets weirder still as they walk on to a beautiful castle, with green grass and fresh water . . . while still in hell! How can this be in hell? Is it the Elysian Fields? Maybe. But i...

Our pilgrim and Virgil begin to walk across Limbo, surely the largest surface in hell since its the uppermost ring. In fact, it's at first like a plain or maybe a large campo in a medieval Italian town. Dante has got questions. And Virgil has got answers. Sometimes, the two match. And sometimes, one of Virgil's answers raises more questions than it solves. Mostly because Virgil has no clue about C...

Limbo is the first circle of INFERNO . . . although that statement already presents a problem. How can Limbo be in hell? Isn't it a state somewhere between the redeemed and the damned? Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I talk through the developing theological notions of Limbo before and up to Dante's day, as well as the ways our poet has chosen to change church doctrine to suit his purposes. Here are...

Along with our pilgrim and Virgil, we take the first steps into the first circle of hell, the "real deal" of INFERNO. As you might imagine, we encounter some difficulties--mostly theological, although maybe also related to Virgil and perhaps even our poet in the background behind it all. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we come to the first circle of hell, Dante's "get-out-of-jail" card . . . and to a...