19. Virgil's (Mis)Understanding Of The Harrowing Of Hell: INFERNO, Canto IV, Lines 46 - 84

Virgil answers Dante's question: Does anyone get out of Inferno? Yes! But maybe not the one soul who matters. Not Virgil, Dante's poetic father.

Inferno Cantos I - IVMark ScarbroughNovember 18, 2020 Comments

20. The Great Poets Of Limbo: INFERNO Canto IV, Lines 85 - 114

Our pilgrim, Dante, meets the great poets of Limbo . . . and even gets put into their company. Problem is, they're in hell. Also, Dante hasn’t really written enough to be a great poet. And then they walk on into a gorgeous spot with a beautiful stream and green grass. But we’re still in hell, right? What happens when a poet’s ambiguity almost overwhelms his work?

Inferno Cantos I - IVMark ScarbroughNovember 11, 2020 Comments

21. Cataloguing The Greats You Know And The Ones You Wish You Knew: INFERNO, Canto IV, Lines 115 - 151

The pilgrim, his guide, and the four great poets head upstairs to see the crowd inside Limbo's castle: a great list of warriors, philosophers, writers, poets, mathematicians, astronomers, physicians, and (yes) Islamic thinkers. Then everyone gets left behind and the epic tone turns to the elegy of loss as Virgil and the pilgrim walk on into the dark.

Inferno Cantos I - IVMark ScarbroughNovember 8, 2020 Comments

22. An Interpolated Episode: A Look Back At The First Four Cantos of INFERNO

A look back over the the first four cantos of INFERNO: their parallels, their divisions, their structure, their movement. Plus, four reasons Dante’s COMEDY has lasted 700 years and continues to inspire so much fascination. As well as the question of love: It always moves the fence—with Beatrice, with Limbo, probably in your own life.

Inferno Cantos I - IV, Interpolated EpisodesMark ScarbroughNovember 4, 2020 Comments

Here are the WALKING WITH DANTE episodes with their study guides for INFERNO, Cantos I - VII: the opening cantos, the first four circles of hell, and an incomplete tour of the fifth, after which the poem may break and reset.