Marco of Lombardy's central discourse in COMEDY raises as many questions as it answers. What is Dante the poet up to with this long speech at the center of the poem. Let's read through the speech in its entirety, then ask six central questions that it raises without definite answers.
Read MoreThe angry penitent Marco of Lombardy's time in COMEDY comes to a conclusion with a chatty back-and-forth with the pilgrim Dante. Dante wants to compliment Marco on a great argument (the very one that Dante the poet crafted!). But Marco comes back with his irritation and abruptly leaves the scene.
Read MoreThe angry penitent Marco of Lombardy continues his diagnosis of the world's ills. It should have two suns. It's got only one. And a sun that's not kosher. Or that perhaps cannot be kosher. So is the fault in us, as he claimed? Or is the corruption of the world a systemic problem?
Read MoreOn the third terrace of anger on Mount Purgatory and in a dark, dense smoke that permits no light, Marco of Lombardy continues his great discourse on free will with a surprising turn: a developmental hypothesis of the soul as a little girl.
Read MoreDante the pilgrim has asked the angry Marco of Lombardy the central question: why have things become so bad on earth? Marco's begins his answer with both exasperation and affection, then he launches into the heart of the matter: free will. The cause is in all of you.
Read MoreDante finds himself about to explode with doubt, thanks to Marco of Lombardy’s snark about the loss of valor in the bows of this world. Dante’s question is really about the nature and cause of evil. How did things get so bad? Let’s pick apart the pilgrim’s question before we get to Marco’s answer.
Read MoreDante the pilgrim encounters one of the wrathful penitents, Marco of Lombardy, an abrupt figure who stands at almost the exact center of COMEDY itself and is one of the most seminal characters in the poem, despite being a murky figure historically and maybe even personally.
Read MoreDante the pilgrim finds himself in such acrid, abrasive smoke that he can’t open his eyes and so must lean on Virgil to help him along the third terrace of Purgatory proper. The terrace of wrath has some of the poet’s most astute understandings of the human condition, including the notion that wrath is a “knot” that must be “solved.”
Read MoreA comparison and contrast of anger in both INFERNO and PURGATORIO, since it’s the first sin or human failing that is overtly found in both. A look at INFERNO, Cantos VII and VII, the circle of wrath vs. PURGATORIO, Cantos XV - XVII, the terrace of wrath. And a look at the cantos in PURGATORIO when read vertically with INFERNO, Cantos XV and XVI.
Read MoreA read-through of the third terrace of Purgatory proper: PURGATORIO, Canto XV, line 85 through Canto XVII, line 72. We’ll explore the smoky terrace of wrath or anger and hear the great speech of Marco of Lombardy which takes center place in the entire poem of COMEDY, all about the free will and the (surprising!) gender of the soul.
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