Walking With Dante10 Nov 2021

Flattery And Feces, Together At Last: Inferno, Canto XVIII, Lines 115 - 134

We've come to the back of INFERNO, Canto XVIII, to the two flatterers who live down in the pouch filled with the muck from human privies.

Just as a warning: This passage is crude and crass. The language is vulgar, maybe even NSFW. Be careful.

Dante, our pilgrim, and his guide, Virgil, have come to the top of the second bridge over the second of the "malebolge" (the "evil pouches") that make up the eighth circle of fraud. We've already seen that the place is disgusting. Now we're about to see that the sinners are even more so.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we slow-walk through Dante's masterpiece, COMEDY. (And not "The Divine Comedy," particularly in this passage, which isn't very divine). Here are the segments of this episode of Walking With Dante:

[01:24] My English translation of Inferno, Canto XVIII, lines 115 - 134. If you'd like to read along, you can find this passage on my website, markscarbrough.com, under the header about the blog for WALKING WITH DANTE.

[03:21] Dante and Alessio in the pouch of the flatterers: thoughts on the pilgrim's becoming a better observer just as we are becoming better readers, and on the question of whether Alessio Interminei's historical obscurity is intentional in the passage.

[10:51] Virgil and Thais: thoughts on the curious lack of women in INFERNO.

[18:00] Dante the poet garbles the poetic reference to Thais in this passage. Is doing so intentional? Or is this a matter that our "divine" poet is actually fallible like the rest of us?

[22:48] Canto XVIII is architectural, in the same way that all of the eighth circle of hell is architectural. I'll admit: this I find intentional. Here's a bit on why.

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

Episoder(511)

Seeing Is (Almost) Believing: PARADISO, Canto IV, Lines 28 - 48

Beatrice begins to take apart the two questions (or doubts) that she has intuited the pilgrim Dante is holding in silence.She first takes on the one with more "poison" in this passage, in which she re...

4 Okt 28min

Paralyzed by Free Will: PARADISO, Canto IV, Lines 1 - 27

Piccarda may have vanished but questions remain. The pilgrim Dante is caught between them, unable to voice them.Beatrice to the rescue! She voices what he cannot say . . . or perhaps what he is afraid...

30 Sep 28min

The Expanding Community of Women in the Moon: PARADISO, Canto III, Lines 109 - 130

Piccarda Donati doesn’t stop her monologue with the cryptic line about her life after the convent. She turns to another figure in the lunar landscape: Constance I of Sicily, the Holy Roman Empress and...

23 Sep 23min

The Violent yet Elliptical End to Piccarda Donati's Story: PARADISO, Canto III, Lines 88 - 108

Piccarda Donati finally answers the question about who she is. She's given her name but not much else about her. In twelve lines (or four tercets) she brings her personal story to its violent yet elli...

20 Sep 27min

Piccarda Donati's Apotheosis of the Will: PARADISO, Canto III, Lines 58 - 87

Piccarda has confessed to her more humble place in the heavens. Our pilgrim Dante then wants to know if she wants more.Her answer leads her to an apotheosis of the will. Everything in the universe is ...

16 Sep 30min

The First Soul in Paradise, Piccarda Donati: PARADISO, Canto III, Lines 34 - 57

At long last, the first soul--or "shade"--steps forward in Paradise. She's Piccarda Donati, a figure we've already encountered once (maybe even twice) in COMEDY.Dante flatters her to speak and she beg...

13 Sep 29min

Catching Feelings in the Sensual Sphere of the Moon: PARADISO, Canto III, Lines 1 - 33

Dante is about to meet the first souls in Paradise, emerging from the liquid light of the moon.The poetry is lush and sensuous. The metaphors are complex and compounded. And Beatrice is a bit chilly, ...

9 Sep 28min

The Souls of the Universe: PARADISO, Canto II, Lines 127 - 148

Beatrice concludes her explanation for moon spots by veering away from them specifically to talk about the nature of the universe.Blessed movers turn the spheres. Or perhaps inhabit them. Or are bound...

6 Sep 27min