Oh, For The Glory Days (That Maybe Never Were): PURGATORIO, Canto XIV, Lines 97 - 126
Description
Guido del Duca reaches the climax of his diatribe: a nostalgic retrospective of the courts and families of Romagna. Where have the good guys gone?
Is this Dante the poet's lament? Or Guido del Duca's? Does this passage tell us more about Guido's problems or Dante's hopes?
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through a tough passage about historical figures from Romagna, many of whom have been lost to the historical record.
Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[01:42] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XIV, lines 97 - 126. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment on this passage, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.
[04:49] The genre: "ubi sunt?" But whose? Guido del Duca's or Dante the poet's?
[09:26] The structure of this passage: good people, to good families (without children), to bad town, to childless warlords.
[14:47] The nostalgic diatribe becomes infernal.
[16:59] More play with bestial and vegetal metaphors (as throughout Canto XIV).
[19:19] The trap of chivalry.
[22:28] Guido del Duca finally finds delight in his laments: the key problem.
[25:28] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XIV, lines 97 - 126.
We've come to the middle of PURGATORIO . . . and indeed the middle of COMEDY as a whole. Let's take a breather and review where we've been in Purgatory since our very slow approach sometimes (or often?) causes us to privilege the trees over the forest.
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I walk you...
Published 11/20/24
We come to the end of Virgil's (first) discourse on love, as well as the end of the central canto of PURGATORIO.
But it's a strange end since Virgil admits to what he doesn't know. Having been so certain about how human behavior operates, he concludes by telling Dante the pilgrim he's on his own...
Published 11/17/24