Walking With Dante

At long last, the speaker in PURGATORIO Canto XIV comes clean and reveals who he is . . . and who his compatriot is. They're Guido del Duca and Rinier (or Rinieri) da Calboli. Now that we now who they are, we have to go back and reassess Canto XIV as a whole. Dante is nothing but cagey in the rhetorical games he's playing. He's demanding more and more out of his reader. And rightly so, given the c...

Dante has been cagey about where he's from, using periphrastic phrasing to describe the Arno valley without naming it. It was apparently the wrong thing to do . . . because one of the envious penitents is going to pick up the pilgrim's (and the poet's?) rhetorical games and push them much further into fully metaphoric space that is also somehow prophetic space, a diatribe against Tuscan corruption...

Dante has started a conversation with two envious penitents . . . a conversation he might not be ready for. They prove more than his rhetorical match. They also muddy the theology of Purgatory itself. Is that intentional? Or are we expected to understand their still-fallen state? Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore more about the two envious souls who interrupt Dante's journey around the secon...

Sapía has finished her amazingly complex speech with the pilgrim Dante . . . or has she? At the opening of Canto XIV, we're not sure who is speaking? Still Sapía? No, two envious souls, leaning against each other, almost gossiping about our pilgrim. And nothing satisfies envy quite like gossip. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this new thing: the opening of a canto in COMEDY in which unname...

We've spent three episodes with this penitent envious soul, Sapía. Now let's look at the entire interchange between her and our pilgrim, Dante . . . as well as the ways PURGATORIO, Canto XIII, reflects INFERNO, Canto XIII. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we talk about the increasingly complex ironies found in one of the most compelling souls in all of Dante's COMEDY. If you'd like to help support thi...

In the concluding moments of Sapía's speech, we find her in dialogue with Dante the pilgrim . . . who is both forthcoming in his confessional stance and also cagey with his hiding his guide, Virgil. She, too, is caught in her own rhetoric: getting what she wants but ultimately revealing herself as a soul who still has a lot more purgation ahead. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the final wo...

Sapía now tells her story to Dante the pilgrim . . . and it includes one of the most blasphemous lines in all of COMEDY. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look closely at one of the most honest and blasphemous monologues in the poem . . . and as we grapple with Sapía's incredible skills in rhetoric. If you'd like to make a contribution to support this podcast and help me cover its many fees, you can...

Dante the pilgrim worked up the courage (or the flattery) to get one of the envious to speak up on the second terrace of Purgatory proper. She does . . . and gives him both more and exactly what (or perhaps a bit less) than he asked for. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I work our first sight of one of the most intricate souls in COMEDY: Sapía. She's a lot more than Dante bargained for. Donate what yo...

Dante has finally come among the envious on the bare, bleak, blue-gray second terrace of Mount Purgatory. We've seen their condition: eyes stitched shut. Now for Dante's reaction. And Virgil's reaction to Dante's reaction. And Dante's ham-handed attempt to flatter someone to speak up. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we approach on of the most significant and curious figures in all of COMEDY. Dante th...

The second terrace of PURGATORIO proves a wild ride into interiority, into the complicated sin of envy, and back into INFERNO. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the first moments in which Dante sees the penitents ahead . . . and delays until the last moment revealing their fate: eyelids stitched shut with wires. Thank you for supporting this podcast through your donations. If you'd like to h...

Dante and Virgil make haste across the second terrace of Purgatory before they're accosted by disembodied voices, calling them to the banquet of love. Sounds great, right? Except there's so much alienation in the landscape and even in the poetry. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we take our first steps onto the second terrace of PURGATORIO with Dante and Virgil. Please consider helping to support this...

Dante the pilgrim and his guide, Virgil, have arrived at the second terrace of Purgatory proper. As readers, we're not even sure what this terrace is about, although we can infer there must be more penitents ahead. Instead, Dante the poet offers us rather straightforward, naturalistic details, a complex neologism (a new word he coined), a crazy line that has many interpretations possible, and then...

Before we step onto PURGATORIO's terrace of envy, the second ledge of Purgatory proper, let's pause a moment to talk about the relationship among Dante, Aquinas, and Aristotle. We have to take this detour because Dante will increasingly incorporate scientific reasoning into his poem, changing its very nature, based on his understanding of Aristotle, which is in turn based on the work of Islamic an...

We've come with Dante the pilgrim and Virgil, his guide, to the second terrace of Purgatory, the terrace of envy. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for this initial read-through of the terrace, beginning at the first line of PURGATORIO, Canto XIII, and extending to line 84 of PURGATORIO, Canto XV. If you'd like to help support this podcast, please consider donating whatever you can to help me cover licens...

Dante the pilgrim and Virgil have a little ways to go before they finally exit the terrace of pride. In fact, Dante has to come to a surprising revelation: It's getting easier. And Virgil has to explain why: Desire is being purified. How? By erasing what God has written. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at the interpretive dilemmas and philosophical quagmires of the final moments on the terrac...

Dante and Virgil begin their climb from the first to the second terrace of Purgatory but as they do, they climb up in an incredibly contorted and difficult simile that swaps around emotional landscapes before landing them in the song of Jesus's beatitudes as well as the screams of hell. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the climb out in this most difficult simile. Please consider contributin...

Dante and Virgil begin their exit from the terrace of pride on Mount Purgtory. To do so, they must encounter and angel who implicitly calls back Lucifer (or Satan) into the text yet who welcomes them on their way up the less-steep ascent. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we watch Virgil reassert this role as the guide and see another of the epic angels in Purgatory. If you'd like to help out, please c...

Dante the poet adds a coda to his (fake) ekphrastic poetry on the reliefs in the road bed of the terrace of pride on Mount Purgatory. He steps back and explains the very nature of the art to us: realer than real, as it were. Then he moves the passage out from its narrative base and into a moral lesson based on an allegorical (and anagogical) reading of his masterwork, COMEDY. Join me, Mark Scarbro...

We've spent three episodes going over the reliefs in the road bed of the terrace of pride on Mount Purgatory. Now let's step back and look at the whole passage. Yes, its sweet. But also its curiously crafted problems. And the way it leaves us with more questions than answers, even though we're supposed to take away a very distinct moral lesson. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we run through this enti...

We've come to the last four reliefs in the paving stones of the terrace of pride. We're almost on our way to the next terrace of Purgatory . . . but not quite. Dante the pilgrim has to pay attention to these final moments, the final exemplars, some of whom are stated outright in the carvings and some of whom are strangely occluded. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look through this last passage on...

We're still walking on top of the reliefs of the prideful in the road bed of the first terrace of Mount Purgatory after the gate: the terrace of pride. Here, Dante the pilgrim sees four more figures: two from the classical age and two from the Biblical age. And the classical figures seem distinctly connected to art. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore another short passage on the reliefs in th...

Virgil has directed Dante the pilgrim to look down at the road bed. Dante sees figures carved into the terrace . . . and he begins to walk on pride, the way one might walk over tombs in the floor of a church. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the first four figures carved into road bed. Who are they? How is the passage crafted? And what can they tell us about the dualism of pride and humilit...

The opening of PURGATORIO, Canto XII, becomes even stranger as the poet Dante claims that the art he’s about to see beneath his feet is even clearer than the actual events when they happened. All well and good, until we remember this isn’t God’s art, as Dante wants us to believe. It’s Dante’s. And audacious. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the second half of the opening twenty-four lines o...

Dante is still hunched over, going along like a dumb ox, paired up with the souls on the terrace of pride. His pride has been lanced by their monologues. Until Virgil tells him to be like the damned Ulysses. And then he straightens up and heads out. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the curious opening lines to PURGATORIO, Canto XII. Dante seems to want to have it both ways at once. But all...

If you'd like to make a contribution to help me with hosting, licensing, streaming, editing, and royalty fees, please consider visiting this PayPal link right here . We’ve come to the end of PURGATORIO, Canto XI . . . and the end of the artist Oderisi’s monologue. He finishes up, not with more about himself, but with the tale of the third penitent we see on the first terrace after the gate: Proven...