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Eliot's the love song of J. Alfred Prufrock.(poet T. S. Eliot)(Critical Essay)

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From: The Explicator
Date: 20020622
Author:Cervo, Nathan A.

The epigraph to Eliot's milestone poem, one that resonates Western culture from Homer to Heinrich Heine and beyond, is taken from Dante's Inferno. John Ciardi translated the original Italian as follows:

If I believed that my reply were made 
To one who could ever climb to the world again, 
This flame would shake no more. But since no shade 
Ever returned--if what I am told is true-- 
From this blind world into the living light, 
Without fear of dishonor I answer you. (Inferno 27, 58-63) (1) 

The speaker, enveloped in infernal fire, is Guido da Montefeltro, who, having been ...

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