An Interpolated Episode: Did Dante Intend All These Interpretive Games In COMEDY?

We danced around with the witch Erichtho quite a bit in the last episode with seven interpretive stances toward and over her. (That is, seven possible ways she functions in the text, or seven ways to interpret her presence, all from a single line of medieval poetry).

Which brings up a giant question for us as we walk with the pilgim: Did the poet intend all of this?

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I explore the various answers to that question over the ages to help us all understand how COMEDY could support all that the interpretive weight.

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

[01:29] The medieval answer: Yes, he did.

[04:22] The neoclassical answer: No, because the poem's a mess.

[06:07] A more modern answer: No, but he did intend to build the open framework that could allow . . . no, encourage so much more. Here are five ways he built that structure.