INFERNO, Episode 154. The Shifty Thieves, The Certain Judgment, The Uncertain Poet: Inferno, Canto XXV, line 142 - Canto XXVI, Line 12

The conclusion of the long episode among the thieves in the seventh of the evil pouches, the “malebolge” that make up fraud’s eighth circle of hell. We come down to slippery identities, uncertain poetics, and for-sure prophetic judgments on Florence: a complicated ending to a complicated set of passages.

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INFERNO, Episode 153. Morphing Into Your Own Father: Inferno, Canto XXV, Lines 79 - 141 (Part Two)

The third metamorphosis of the thieves: the most complicated, the most overtly literary, and the most challenging in terms of its implications for Dante’s poetics. In the seventh of the evil pouches, the malebolge of fraud, Dante may finally confront his own fears so he can move on and write the poem he wants to write.

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INFERNO, Episode 150. The Beast With Two Backs--Or, Two Things And Nothing: Inferno, Canto XXV, Lines 34 - 78 (Part One)

Dante silences Virgil, silences his reader (me!), and sets out to describe the most daring metamorphosis yet in COMEDY. It’s a weirdly erotic tale of the beast with two backs which becomes two things . . . and not something, but nothing. Lots of Ovid, lots of poetic license, and a wild story that demands so much from its (silenced) reader.

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INFERNO, Episode 149. Cacus, A Centaur Like None Other, Not Even In Classical Literature: Inferno, Canto XXV, Lines 17 -33

Vanni Fucci runs off, pursued by Cacus, a centaur toting lots of snakes and even a dragon. Virgil explains who Cacus is. Too bad Virgil’s explanation doesn’t match his own in THE AENEID. Or Livy’s. Or Ovid’s. Too bad no one else seems to know Cacus is a centaur. This passage from INFERNO gets to the heart of Dante’s poetics.

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INFERNO, Episode 144. Get Me Closer To That Unintelligible Stuff: Inferno, Canto XXIV, Lines 61 - 78

Dante is still out of breath but he’s hiding it from Virgil. Instead, he hears an unintelligible voice and wants to get closer to it. So they make their way across the rugged bridge and start to descend a wall toward the seventh of the evil pouches of hell, the seventh of the “malebolge” that make up the great landscape of fraud.

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