![]() ![]() "If I thought that my reply would be to someone who would ever return to earth, this flame would remain without further movement but as no one has ever returned alive from this gulf, if what I hear is true, I can answer you with no fear of infamy.".This particular guy’s name is Guido da Montefeltro, and when Dante asks to hear his story, here’s what he says: The quote from this epigraph is said by one of the characters in the eighth circle of Hell (which has nine circles), where some of the worst of the worst are stuck for eternity.Along the way he meets a lot of evil and misguided people. In order to scare him away from sin and other bad things, heaven sends another poet named Virgil to give Dante a guided tour through the horrors of Hell (known as "Inferno" in Italian). The Inferno tells the story of how a guy (Dante) who has messed up his life badly enough to require some help from the nice folks in heaven.Sneaky little references to Dante pop up everywhere in Eliot’s poems, but this one is more obvious – it’s a direct quotation.We really can’t defend him on this charge, except to say that he was absolutely and totally obsessed with Dante and maybe he thought other people loved Dante as much as he did – enough to translate the quote for themselves. ![]() And no, Eliot doesn’t translate it out of the Italian, which is the kind of stunt that makes people think Eliot is a snob.The epigraph of this poem is a six-line quotation from Canto 27 of the Inferno by the Renaissance Italian poet Dante Alighieri.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |