The piece I admire is The Inferno , since it is the most iconic of his works. The piece is about his journey through Hell, and gave birth to the idea of the Nine Circles of Hell, a concept still used today in Western culture. Lost through Hell, Dante eventually finds a spiritual guide in the form of the poet Virgil. The book is split into 100 cantos, and depicts Hell as an exotic brimstone landscape with a variety of inhabitants, who all ended up in Hell after death for different sins committed throughout their lifetime. I admire the fresh (at that time) interpretation of the afterlife, and the storytelling through Dante’s thoughts, as well as Virgil’s commentary through his time in the afterlife. Although it might have been normal for the time, I also admire the vocabulary used by Dante when writing the book.
From brimstone beaches washes up my body
My arms are ethereal, as the mortal body has been left behind in the material world
And now, I am lost in the afterlife
The first who greet me on that beach are faceless, as they have lost their identity
Wandering through Limbo, identity has no meaning here, for those who reside here have lost it.
The unbaptised now shamble aimlessly for eternity
And time becomes meaningless as the drive to live has been lost
My identity is fading as I realize my fate among the lost
Faces blend into masks of ether, nobody recognizes my face
As I cannot recognize theirs
Like Rembrandt’s brush blending in shades of vermilion against a landscape of stone pillars
Wasps sting at our backs while maggots eat away their feet
Their reluctance and self interest has turned into their downfall
Charon watches from across the riverbed
As the Earth begins to claim me as its own
I feel my identity slipping away
As I forget my past
blogblog 