Dante in The Wasteland

Dante's Inferno in The Wasteland

I have posted an article that relates Dante’s Inferno to The Wasteland, a poem by T.S Eliot. While this may seem a bit academic for a blog setting, I think it’s important to recognize how Dante’s work influenced early 20^th Century American writers such as T.S Elliot and Ernest Hemingway. In the years following the First World War, there was a certain disdainful and criticizing attitude toward society that was similar to that of Dante in The Inferno. More importantly, though, The Wasteland addresses the search for salvation in a bleak and decaying land.

          
  The Wasteland is about the search for the Holy Grail, which, to Eliot, represented knowledge and salvation. Dante chose to represent these things as a light atop a mountain, but the thematic drive is the same. To signify his dissatisfaction with post-war society, Elliot chose to reference The Inferno numerous times while describing our own scenes and rituals on earth. He references Limbo, describing the boredom and “eternal sighs” of modern life, as well as the shallowness and lack of morality.

         
  The article, written by Jennifer McNeil Bertrand, covers all of these bases, and goes on to explain that Dante has been used as a template for countless subsequent writers who wished to express disapproval of their society. She interestingly points out, though, that while the Inferno is more concerned with the morality of society as a whole and is firmly grounded in Christianity, The Wasteland is more about the individual’s morality within a “bleak social and political landscape”, and is more of a secular text. In other words, while Dante left the Inferno with his Christian beliefs renewed, The Wasteland is more of an endless search for spiritual meaning. This article is an example of how we can come to further understand The Divine Comedy by examining and comparing the works that drew inspiration from it.