
Abandon Hope For It's The Gate Of Hell: INFERNO, Canto III, Lines 1 - 21
We follow our pilgrim and his guide, Virgil, on their first steps into hell. Let's pause with these two at the gate of hell with its famous inscription ("Abandon hope!").You enter hell through an act ...
28 Loka 202021min

Bested By Beatrice, Bested By Virgil: INFERNO, Canto II, Lines 115 - 141
Beatrice has bested Virgil. Virgil has bested Dante, our pilgrim.Dante can do nothing else except set off across the universe.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we finish Canto II of INFERNO and get ready t...
25 Loka 202024min

To Be Saved, Tell A Story: INFERNO, Canto II, Lines 76 - 114
Where's Dante, our pilgrim? Not in this passage! He's fallen out of his own poem as Virgil and Beatrice engage in their rhetorical battle.And where's hell, the promised blaze with its tortured sinners...
21 Loka 202030min

Jousting To Tell The Tale: INFERNO, Canto II, Lines 43 - 75
After Dante confesses his unworthiness in the opening of Canto II of INFERNO, Virgil clarifies the matter. "You're not modest. You're a coward."Then Virgil does what humans do. He tells a story. One t...
18 Loka 202030min

False Modesty (Or Maybe Not): INFERNO, Canto II, Lines 1 - 42
We thought we were underway, but important things must happen first. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we start the Canto II of INFERNO to discover that the our pilgrim, Dante, is almost undone by his doub...
14 Loka 202028min

An Interpolated Episode: A Look Back At INFERNO, Canto I, And Look Around The Entire Poem
Let's pause to look back over INFERNO, Canto I. I'll read it through for its scope and arc. Then we'll set about exploring this piece of architecture, not just the first canto, but the whole of Dante'...
11 Loka 202032min

Virgil The Poet Becomes Virgil The Prophet: INFERNO, Canto I, Lines 97 - 136
In a previous episode, I talked about how Dante defines Virgil as a poet, not a philosopher, and why that was important in Dante's medieval context.But there's more to Virgil than poetry. There's prop...
7 Loka 202026min

Virgil To The Rescue: INFERNO, Canto I, Lines 67 - 96
We meet the pilgrim Dante's first and great guide, the Roman poet Virgil. He is the pilgrim's master, his "author." Except he's also Virgil, a guy who has a limited understanding of the universe.What ...
4 Loka 202025min