Walking With Dante9 Nov 2022

Of Narcissists, Purgatory, Rage, Ugolino, And Our Poet Dante: INFERNO, Canto XXXIII, Lines 1 - 90

Our final episode on Count Ugolino! Yet there's so much left to say. We're going to have to pass on from this ghastly damned soul and let him return to his savage meal of Archbishop Ruggieri's brain.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I add on the condemnation of Pisa and try to come to terms one last time with this overwhelming figure from the COMEDY, a rival to Ulysses and Francesca in the amount of scholarly ink that has been spilled on their speeches.

Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:43] The passage one more time, but now through its conclusion: INFERNO, Canto XXXIII, lines 1 - 90. If you'd like to read along, print it off, or drop a comment, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.

[08:45] Ugolino points out Ruggieri as the traitor--and not himself!

[10:37] Ugolino is a master manipulator.

[13:04] Ugolino breaks his narrative to 1) absolve himself and 2) aggrandize himself.

[16:16] Ugolino breaks his narrative and shows his self-doubt, his humanity, as narcissists often do.

[19:05] Ugolino is a bad father, not because he doesn't comfort his sons, but because he turns to silence when he should be helping them pray to prepare for their deaths.

[22:29] Everyone debates why Ugolino is in hell, but why exactly is Archbishop Ruggieri in hell?

[25:25] Ugolino's dream anticipates the dream sequences in PURGATORIO.

[26:35] How can all Pisans deserve death if evil is an individual's choice?

[28:49] The condemnation of Pisa is Dante's attempt to bring a deep ambivalence back under control.

[32:44] Dante's rage is on full display at the end of Ugolino's monologue.

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

Episoder(499)

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 Aug 28min

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