RIght here, many people see a break in the poem. They often rely on the rather unreliable Boccaccio to explain what’s going on. But maybe we don’t need his “story.” Maybe instead we can see a break in the structure of the poem itself—and most specifically, in what Dante-the-poet needs to do with his poetic father, Virgil, in order to write the poem he needs to write.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I offer you an overview of the problems of this so-called “break” in the poem—and try to come to terms with what I see as a structural shift in INFERNO from here on out. It all has to do with Virgil. And with the poet’s relationship to the vernacular language in which he’s writing his masterpiece.

Here’s my English translation of this short passage from INFERNO: Canto VIII, lines 1 - 6.

Continuing on, I say that well before

We got to the foot of that high tower,

Our eyes had already been directed toward its top,

Drawn by two flames that flickered up there,

And another that answered from so far away,

Our eyes could barely make it out.