![]() ![]() There’s a similar sense of continuing conflict running through Heaney’s sense of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. A classic example is Seamus Heaney’s dialogue with Dante in his collection from 1979, Field Work, the concluding poem of which is Heaney’s own version of one of the most horrific stories in the Inferno, the story of Ugolino, the Pisan nobleman who is starved to death in a tower and who takes revenge on the politician who is responsible for his death. War poems, for example, often draw to varying degrees and in various ways on the Inferno. This is why Dante tends to be identified with the Inferno and indeed why the Inferno is so often cited in the present day, in terms of trying to understand present day forms of horror and violence. This has to do with the work’s appeal and part of that – particularly in relation to the Inferno, which does have a primacy among the three books – is that it is a powerful story about witnessing and trying to comprehend extremes of violence and horror. Why is it the most important work of Italian literature and, indeed, why is it considered a world masterpiece? It’s the kind of work that people refer to without even having read it, so tightly is it woven into our common cultural fabric. When it comes to Dante, it’s the Commedia, a poetic work in three parts, or ‘canticles’ – Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso – which immediately springs to mind. Foreign Policy & International Relations. ![]()
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