Donate to help keep WALKING WITH DANTE on its path by using this PayPal link here.Dante's invective against political strife reaches its height by turning its rhetoric toward Dante's own experience--and maybe even his experience in writing COMEDY.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we watch Dante's poetic craft fall apart a bit and then turn back to the poet's own experience, all to find his stance as the prophet-poet he wants to be.Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:[02:40] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto VI, lines 127 - 151. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment to continue the conversation, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.[05:05] The rage-filled sarcasm seems to go off the rails in a loss of good poetic craft.[09:26] The invective turns to the poet's personal experience and a call-back to a previous moment in PURGATORIO, Canto VI.[13:12] The invective ends with a terrific image of a feather bed and a sick woman as the summation of the political problems in Florence.[15:48] PURGATORIO, Canto VI, is directly related to INFERNO, Canto VI.[20:10] In PURGATORIO, Canto VI, Dante the poet may be learning how to become the prophet-poet he wants to be.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.