Walking With Dante

Hugh Capet continues the story of his family, bringing the saga of the French (or Frankish) crown into Dante's day with three of Hugh's most infamous descendants . . . at least as far as the poet is concerned. Our pilgrim gets treated to a grim recital of French misdeeds. And we catch our first whiff of antisemitism in COMEDY, just at the moment the actual French monarchy is expelling the Jews fro...

The pilgrim has been attracted by one soul, calling out his examples of Mary, Fabricius, and Nicholas to counter his own sins of avarice. Dante steps closer and inquires who this soul is. He finds himself in front of Hugh Capet, the legendary (and historical) founder of the Capetian dynasty of French kings. Or at least a version of said Hugh Capet, since Dante the poet flubs the historicity of his...

Dante has gone beyond Pope Adrian V but hasn't left the fifth terrace of Purgatory. He and Virgil pick their way among the many shades until the pilgrim hears one shade call out three examples that entice the pilgrim to find this penitent. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through this passage on the terrace of the avaricious that will eventually lead us to our surprising second greedy soul ahe...

Pope Adrian V has pushed the pilgrim Dante to move on . . . even though the pilgrim doesn't want to. He and Virgil pick their way through the crowded fifth terrace of Purgatory. The avaricious are so many that the poet has to step out and offer a prophetic denunciation among the wreckage. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we edge our way toward the second penitent on this crowded terrace of PURGATORIO....

Pope Adrian V concludes his discourse on the fifth terrace of Mount Purgatory on a strangely lonely, alienated note. Perhaps this is what avarice does to a person. Or perhaps this is what exile has done to Dante. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through the end of PURGATORIO XIX and Pope Adrian's speech on the terrace of the avaricious. We end at a melacholy spot for one of the redeemed. Here...

Pope Adrian V, bound hands and feet to the ground, sets out to answer the pilgrim Dante's second question: What's going on here? In doing so, the pope unwittingly gives one of the most misunderstood lines in PURGATORIO. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore more of this conversation with the first (and only) pope we meet on Mount Purgatory. Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH...

Dante the pilgrim has asked Virgil--at least with a look in the eyes--if he could speak to one of the avaricious penitents, lying face down on the ground. On Virgil's okay, the pilgrim walks up to Pope Adrian IV . . . or at least so Dante the poet thinks. Sources vary. And interpretations, too. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through the interpretive and historical knots we face on meeting ou...

Dante and Virgil now walk along the fifth terrace of Purgatory, looking at the souls who are face down, stuck to the ground, unable to move or turn over. One of them answers Virgil about the way up . . . and the pilgrim Dante wants to stop for a conversation. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for a look at this transitional passage in PURGATORIO as we step up to meet the first of three souls on the fifth...

Dante the pilgrim has had a "P" wiped off his forehead by the angel at the stairs. He's started his climb to the next terrace. All seems well, but he's still sad, bent over with worry, troubled about his dream. Virgil again comes to the rescue. He reinterprets the dream for the pilgrim (leaving us with quite a few questions!) and commands the pilgrim to direct his eyes up to the heavens, the ultim...

Awakened from his dream by a foul odor, Dante the pilgrim finds himself fully out of tune with his surroundings: a bright new day on the mountain of Purgatory, beautiful sunshine at his back, and an angel whose feathers fan him on to the next terrace. He's even promised the curious "ladies of consolation" as a salve for his mourning. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at a difficult passage in P...

We've had two dreams in PURGATORIO, one at Canto IX and one at Canto XIX (although it actually started in the last line of Canto XVIII). Let's take a moment to compare and contrast these two dreams. What can they tell us about the changing nature of PURGATORIO, especially given my thesis that this is a poem in process, one in which the poet is learning how to write the poem as he moves forward? He...

Here's the second episode on the pilgrim's second dream in PURGATORIO. Things get wilder after the ugly lady becomes beautiful under the pilgrim Dante's gaze. She begins to sing. She identifies herself as a siren. She mentions Ulysses (incorrectly?). Another lady appears and begs Virgil for help. And Virgil saves Dante (yet again). Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we parse this passage about the worki...

Our pilgrim has fallen asleep on the edge of the fourth terrace of Mount Purgatory. He's seen the racing slothful but night has gotten the better of him . . . so he begins to dream. That dream is all about desire and the male gaze. It's also about poetic space and dream space . . . and the porous nature between the two. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we start the first of two episodes on the second...

We've climbed up to the fifth terrace of Purgatory proper and come among the avaricious. These three cantos become increasingly complex and daring: in their theology, in their poetics, and in their myth-making. They're extraordinarily rich. Gilded, even. Which somehow fits, since these are the cantos in which the greedy purge their sin. And we've got three incredible monologues: from a late-to-rep...

The zealous slothful have run on, although there are still two coming in the rear, "biting" the penitents from behind with warnings about sloth. After that, the pilgrim Dante has a new thought--curiously undefined--which leads him into his second dream in PURGATORIO. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we finish off Canto XVIII and leave our pilgrim to his slumbers. Here are the segments for this episode...

At last, the slothful penitents arrive. They're a roiling horde in a crazy rush, whipped around the terrace to make up for the ways they were negligent in life. As these frantic souls pass by, one of them speaks a brave truth about Dante the poet's primary patron, a fierce warlord who has sheltered the poet on the run but whose family may not be all they're cracked up to be. Join me, Mark Scarbrou...

Our pilgrim has found himself in the dark of night, a time where he loses all effort on Mount Purgatory. But don't get too sleepy, Dante. You can get run over by the slothful, all at a full gallop in a Bacchic frenzy. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we return to the plot after Virgil's discourses on love, here on the fourth terrace of Mount Purgatory. If you'd like to help underwrite the many fees as...

Virgil offers his third discourse on love at the middle of PURGATORIO to 1) show his work about ethics derived from Aristotle's notions of substance and cause and 2) to make sure the pilgrim understands that his actions are his own fault. This is a complicated passage with lots of historical resonances, particularly from Aristotle and Plato (as understood through Aquinas). It'll take us some work...

Virgil has finished his second, clarifying discourse on love, but it hasn't done the trick. The pilgrim Dante is even more full of doubts . . . pregnant with them, in fact. Let's look at the pilgrim's second question to Virgil's discourse on love and talk about the complex ways Beatrice and even physical desire operate in the poem. I'm Mark Scarbrough. Thanks for coming on the journey with me. If...

In answer to the pilgrim's request that Virgil show his work on the nature of love, Virgil (and the poet Dante behind him) condense and recast the very bases of the thinking in Western culture: Aristotle's notion that the objective world creates a mental picture that forms the basis of any action. This passage is one of the most complex in PURGATORIO. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we take apart its...

Virgil seemed to have come to a resting place in his monumental discourse on love: "Here's all I know . . . and all I don't know." But the pilgrim is less than satisfied. He wants Virgil to continue on, to show his work for these complex syllogisms. And Dante the poet is not done with Virgil either, given the mirrored structure of cantos XVII and XVIII. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we move beyond...

We've come to the middle of PURGATORIO . . . and indeed the middle of COMEDY as a whole. Let's take a breather and review where we've been in Purgatory since our very slow approach sometimes (or often?) causes us to privilege the trees over the forest. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I walk you through the first half of PURGATORIO one more time, mostly to remind you where we've been, but also to make...

We come to the end of Virgil's (first) discourse on love, as well as the end of the central canto of PURGATORIO. But it's a strange end since Virgil admits to what he doesn't know. Having been so certain about how human behavior operates, he concludes by telling Dante the pilgrim he's on his own to find out further answers. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we conclude Virgil's astoundingly certain dis...

Virgil continues his discourse about love, the central discourse in all of COMEDY. It's a tour de force of scholastic reasoning . . . that may leave something to be desired after INFERNO. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore Virgil's scholastic understanding of all human action and his vision of love as the seed of all that we do. Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE: [0...

Love is the seed … of all you do. It's news to me, given the state of the world. But not to Virgil. And certainly not to Dante's COMEDY. Virgil's explosive claim about love lies at the center of the poem: We do right and we go wrong because of the seed of love. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at the beginning of Virgil's central discourse in COMEDY, an overwhelming statement about human motiv...