The Third Great Sinner of Hell, Pier delle Vigne: Inferno, Canto XIII, Lines 46 - 78
Walking With Dante23 Touko 2021

The Third Great Sinner of Hell, Pier delle Vigne: Inferno, Canto XIII, Lines 46 - 78

Dante, our pilgrim, has done as Virgil instructed: he's torn a branch off a bramble, only to have it spit blood and air--and words!

The bush is the soul of one of the great courtiers of the Middle Ages: Pier della Vigne. He's here because . . . well, if you trust him, for nothing of his doing.

His speech is a tour de force of literary technique. Our poet is pulling out all the stops.

And maybe starting a fire, too. Because what if you can't trust what you read? Isn't that literary suicide?

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I explore one of the great speeches of INFERNO, if not all of COMEDY.

Here are the segments of this podcast episode:

[01:23] My English translation of this passage from INFERNO: Canto XIII, lines 46 - 78. If you'd like to see this translation, it's on my website, markscarbrough.com, under the "Walking With Dante" header.

[04:15] Virgil, credulity, incredulity, and nature of reading--or the dangerous game of pushing your luck as a writer.

[08:37] The branch speaks! Pier delle Vigne. A bit about his history--what we know and what we don't.

[16:45] Pier blames his fate on envy, the scourge of every court. And his rhetoric lofts to the sky. What's he hiding? Or telling? Or doing?

[20:03] The exact moment of the suicide, one of the most perfect and elliptical lines in an already perfect and elliptical passage. It says everything. And says nothing. All at the same moment.

[27:31] A look at the rhetorical structure of the passage as a whole--and the point that it may all be trending toward its appeal.

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(499)

Incarnated in the Moon: PARADISO, Canto II, Lines 19 - 45

Incarnated in the Moon: PARADISO, Canto II, Lines 19 - 45

After Dante's warning to his readers (or perhaps some of his readers), we return to the plot, ascending through the heavens to arrive at the moon . . . or really, in the moon.Dante and Beatrice find t...

19 Elo 28min

Go Home: PARADISO, Canto II, Lines 1 - 18

Go Home: PARADISO, Canto II, Lines 1 - 18

Our poet steps out of the shadows with an important message: "Go home."Because PARADISO is hard. Because we might get lost. Because we're not prepared.The stark address to all readers--or perhaps to a...

16 Elo 25min

Of Natural Instincts and Their Natural Ends: PARADISO, Canto I, Lines 115 - 142

Of Natural Instincts and Their Natural Ends: PARADISO, Canto I, Lines 115 - 142

Beatrice continues in her discourse about our natural instincts, making the bold claim that they can lead us to our natural ends . . . which are the good, not the catastrophic bad.Her Scholastic theol...

12 Elo 23min

Sailing Across the Great Sea of "To Be": PARADISO, Canto I, Lines 94 - 114

Sailing Across the Great Sea of "To Be": PARADISO, Canto I, Lines 94 - 114

Beatrice has answered Dante's first doubt, but he has another. He can't quite understand how he, maybe in his body, can make his way across the universe.She doesn't have a quick answer. Instead, she h...

9 Elo 25min

Returning Home Through the Music of the Spheres: PARADISO, Canto I, Lines 61 - 93

Returning Home Through the Music of the Spheres: PARADISO, Canto I, Lines 61 - 93

Our pilgrim finds everything doubled in brightness . . . because he's begun to fly up to the heavens, although he doesn't know it at first.He's too busy figuring out all that light . . . and listening...

5 Elo 37min

Staring at the Sun: PARADISO, Canto I, Lines 37 - 60

Staring at the Sun: PARADISO, Canto I, Lines 37 - 60

The plot gets underway in PARADISO.Our pilgrim Dante turns to Beatrice . . . who is paying him no attention. She's staring at the sun.So he does the same! He hasn't even left earth, yet the miraculous...

2 Elo 36min

A Polyvocal Passage With All Its Dissonances: PARADISO, Canto I, Lines 13 - 36

A Polyvocal Passage With All Its Dissonances: PARADISO, Canto I, Lines 13 - 36

Our poet moves from his scholastic and even (medieval) scientific opening of PARADISO into his invocation . . . to Apollo?This passage has often embarrassed Dante scholars who feel the need to excuse ...

29 Heinä 41min

Welcome to a Renegotiated Poem: PARADISO, Canto I, Lines 1 - 12

Welcome to a Renegotiated Poem: PARADISO, Canto I, Lines 1 - 12

From its opening lines, it's clear that PARADISO is not like what has come before in COMEDY. Dante seems to be renegotiating the terms of his poem, establishing a new voice, a new model, and a new met...

26 Heinä 37min