Too Many Footnotes and Not Enough Time to Reflect
At the end of INFERNO Canto XI, we've already come a long with our pilgrim Dante. We've also encountered lots of moments that need explanation and lots of interpretive knots.But I want to call our att...
25 Apr 202111min
Usury + Violence = A Theory Of Art: INFERNO, Canto XI, Lines 91 - 114
Our pilgrim, Dante, dares to ask Virgil a second question. This one's harder. So much so that even Virgil seems hesitant.Why is usury punished so far down in hell? And why is usury punished among the ...
21 Apr 202123min
Virgil, Your Map Of Hell Needs Work: INFERNO, Canto XI, Lines 67 - 90
Most of INFERNO Canto XI is taken up with Virgil's "mappa inferno." The old poet claims he's laying it out with "clear reasoning."But maybe not, because our pilgrim has a couple of questions.Join me, ...
18 Apr 202129min
The Greatest Sin Isn't Pride--It's Fraud: INFERNO, Canto XI, Lines 52 - 66
We've left the seven deadly sins behind. We got through lust, gluttony, avarice, and wrath, then dumped sloth, envy, and pride in favor of heresy, violence, and two types of fraud.Join me, Mark Scarbr...
14 Apr 202128min
The Sins Of Violence Explained (Sort Of): INFERNO, Canto XI, Lines 28 - 51
Virgil begins to detail his mappa mundi--or perhaps his mappa inferno--with a longer look at the seventh circle of hell, the next we'll encounter.He's already explained what's ahead: injustice and mal...
11 Apr 202132min
Mapping the Uncharted at the Beginning of the Age of Discovery: INFERNO, Canto XI, Lines 16 - 27
Settled in the shade of the tomb for a heretic pope, Dante hears Virgil's first take on the nature of lowest hell: malice, injury, the heart of evil itself, all bound up with force and fraud.Mappamund...
7 Apr 202123min
The Dazzle of Beatrice, The Stench Of Hell: INFERNO, Canto X, Line 121b, through Canto XI, Lines 15
Our pilgrim leaves Farinata's and Cavalcante's tomb hesitantly. Something about his encounter with the heretics is so profound, it stops the forward momentum of COMEDY for a time.What's ahead is the t...
4 Apr 202128min
Where Is My Son? A Thematic And Structural Overview Of INFERNO, Canto X
Why is Farinata in the sixth circle of the heretics in hell? And why is he damned in the first place?The answers may lie in the structure of Canto X of INFERNO. It may also lie in the nature of the se...
31 Mar 202132min
