Walking down the levy along the stream with his guide, Dante the pilgrim faces his former teacher, scorched on the burning sands. Or the guy the poet wants us to think was his teacher: Brunetto Latini. (Poor Virgil. He's forgotten--momentarily.)

So begins one of the most fraught and difficult conversations in INFERNO. There are hidden agendas everywhere. Strange twists in logic. And a lot about the very hellish heart of the project for every writer: the quest for fame, the need to be remembered, because printed words survive in this world in the ways people don't.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I explore the astounding ambivalence and irony embedded in this conversation with the fourth great sinner of hell, Brunetto Latini, perhaps the best-known writer in Dante's world before our own poet overtakes his teacher to become the author of the COMEDY. This is a joust between two poets of different generations. And an attempt to find a father. All at the same time.

Here are the segments of this podcast episode:

[00:57] The passage itself. If you'd like to read my English translation, it's on my website, markscarbrough.com, under the header "WALKING WITH DANTE."

[02:46] The pilgrim Dante's reaction to Brunetto: first with the intellect, then with his emotions. And the most poignant question of this canto, or maybe of any in INFERNO: "Ser Brunetto, are you here?"

[07:49] Who was Brunetto Latini? Let's dig a bit into the history of this writer, who was a major influence in Dante's world but would probably be almost forgotten today, or at least a sub, sub, sub question on a PhD exam, were it not for Dante's COMEDY.

[15:16] The passage seems to turn on the father-son relationship between our pilgrim and this once-great poet. Or maybe it's the relationship of an older poet to a younger one. Or maybe those two relationships are the same thing.

[20:29] Who is the teacher and who is the student? The passage gets stranger as it goes along. The ambivalence gets thick. As it probably should, given the (alleged) relationship between these two. After all, who doesn't want to put their teacher in hell?