Walking With Dante25 Nov 2020

Cataloguing The Greats You Know And The Ones You Wish You Knew: INFERNO, Canto IV, Lines 115 - 151

Our pilgrim, Dante, gets to a vantage point where he can look across the "enameled" green to see the crowd gathered in and around Limbo's castle. He then lists off the greats: Trojans, Romans, Caesar, Aristotle, even pre-Socratic thinkers.

Problem is, our poet didn't know many of these thinkers and writers except by name. He only knew of Plato by an incomplete translation of one minor work.

What's more, he includes a few names in his list of the greats that are almost mind-blowing, figures I didn't see even after reading COMEDY for almost thirty years.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I continue on the slow journey across COMEDY.

Please consider supporting the work of this podcast with a one-time donation or a small monthly stipend, using this PayPal link right here.

Here are the segments of this episode:

[01:37] My English translation of INFERNO, Canto IV, Lines 115 - 151. If you want to see it, find a deeper study guide, or drop a comment, please find its entry on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[04:20] A bit about my history with COMEDY--and my apparent blindness to some of its details, despite reading it for so many years.

[05:26] The first pieces of this passage: questions about who the "we" is, questions about the description of the green grass in the castle ("enameled"?), and questions about the poet who never seems far behind the veil of these passages.

[07:40] The first list of who the pilgrim sees: Trojans, Romans, and (here it comes) an Islamic ruler. Also, a bit about the notion of "fiction v. history" in medieval writing.

[14:25] A second list of the ones the pilgrim sees as he lifts his eyes higher: philosophers, thinkers, writers, mathematicians, astronomers, physicians--and two Islamic scholars, more names in the list I missed.

[18:03] A further listing, including poets among mathematicians and astronomers, along with two great Islamic philosophers.

[22:43] A bit about the rationalizations for this list. Maybe there's an emotional component to listing off those you honor when you're on the run.

[26:58] The last lines of the passage--and the intrusion of the poet, Dante, for one final time in a confession of his failure. The poet's never been far away in Canto IV, in Limbo.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(498)

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 Aug 25min

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 Aug 23min

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 Aug 25min

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 Aug 37min

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 Aug 36min

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 Jul 41min

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 Jul 37min

Final Thoughts On PURGATORIO

We've reached the end of our time on the great mountain of Purgatory . . . and in the great second canticle of COMEDY.Here are some final thoughts, an attempt to bring our time with this part of the p...

26 Apr 19min