Walking With Dante

Dec 11 2024 376 ep. 28 mins 60

Walking With Dante Podcast artwork

Ever wanted to read Dante's Divine Comedy? Come along with us! We're not lost in the scholarly weeds. (Mostly.) We're strolling through the greatest work (to date) of Western literature. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I take on this masterpiece passage by passage. I'll give you my rough English translation, show you some of the interpretive knots in the lines, let you in on the 700 years of commentary, and connect Dante's work to our modern world. The pilgrim comes awake in a dark wood, then walks across the known universe. New episodes every Sunday and Wednesday.

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Speaking Truth To Power: PURGATORIO, Canto XVIII, Lines 97 - 129

Dec 11 2024 27 mins

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,

The Sleepy Can Get Run Over: PURGATORIO, Canto XVIII, Lines 76 - 96

Dec 08 2024 27 mins

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

Virgil, Reason, Love, And The Roots Of Modern Ethics: PURGATORIO, Canto XVIII, Lines 49 - 75

Dec 04 2024 39 mins

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 tak

Questions Of Pregnancy And Blame: PURGATORIO, Canto XVIII, Lines 40 - 48

Dec 01 2024 21 mins

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 journe

The Cognitive, Rational Basis Of Love: PURGATORIO, Canto XVIII, Lines 19 - 39

Nov 27 2024 32 mins

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

Excuse Me, Virgil, I Didn't Quite Get That: PURGATORIO, Canto XVIII, Lines 1 - 18

Nov 24 2024 24 mins

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

A (Sort Of) Short Summary Of PURGATORIO, Cantos I - XVII

Nov 20 2024 33 mins

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, b

Love Escapes Virgil: PURGATORIO, Canto XVII, Lines 127 - 139

Nov 17 2024 21 mins

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 astounding

Love Maps Purgatory: PURGATORIO, Canto XVII, Lines 106 - 126

Nov 13 2024 29 mins

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

Love Is The Seed: PURGATORIO, Canto XVII, Lines 91 - 105

Nov 10 2024 33 mins

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 a