Did Dante think the characters in classical poems like those by Virgil, Statius, and Ovid were real, historical people? The answer lies at the heart of our problem of reading Dante across the scientific-revolution divide. He may find texts more reliable than we do . . . and may find meaning less stable than we do.
Read MoreWe’ve concluded our slow-walk across hell, the first third (or so) of Dante’s masterpiece, COMEDY. But there are many more ways you can deepen your understanding of INFERNO. Here are some suggestions for ways to come to terms with the poem beyond this podcast—all as we get ready to ascend Mount Purgatory.
Read MoreWhy has Dante's THE DIVINE COMEDY lasted 700 years? Its architecture, its invitation to multiplicity, and its very human motivation: love.
Read MoreLimbo is Dante's first donnybrook, his first beef with Christian theology in THE DIVINE COMEDY. He changes church doctrine. Because he's Dante.
Read MoreThis episode is an interpolated one. I promised some of these from the start of this podcast. It’s a chance to see Canto I in its trajectory, strangeness, and interpretive “knottedness.”
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I offer a bit about the shape of the plot and the mechanics of the poetry. I want you to see how the language lies (even if we’re reading the poem in English, not in medieval Florentine). In other words, I want to get away from the passages, the fragments of the canto, and take it as one big gulp of poetry.
I also want to fill you in on some of the poetics of the COMEDY. This may seem inordinately technical to some, but it helps you understand the way the COMEDY is put together. Mostly, it helps you understand the almost epic task Dante-the-poet set for himself. He created a new poetic form, standardized a Tuscan dialect, wrote in an unbelievably complicated system of rhythm and rhyme, AND (not yet but soon) began to make up words because there were none to fit what he wanted to say. See: the greatest work to date of Western culture. Hands down.
In this episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE, join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I delve into the life of the man who imagined and wrote this incredible walk across the known universe known now as “The Divine Comedy” (although he only called it “Comedy”).
We won’t cover any lines from the poem in this episode. Rather, we’ll touch on the historical context of the poem. We’ll go back to the early 1200s, to the struggles among the Holy Roman Empire, the Papal See, and the French crown for control of not only Florence but a big swath of the Italian peninsula. And we’ll bring that story up to our poet and through his death in 1321.
I’ll offer a rough chronology of Dante’s life. I hope you’ll come to see that nothing could have prepared us for the fact that this poet could, would, and did write the greatest work (to date!) of Western culture.
Dante (in red) by perhaps Giotto or one of his students, in the Bargello in Florence, Italy (this image is referenced in the podcast episode)
Join me for this short, introductory episode for the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE. I’ll give you the lay of the land and ways to map the journey ahead. It’s only a stroll across the known universe. Bring a walking stick.