Italian Meaning

The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock begins with a stanza in Italian, which before research didn't add much to the poem and its meaning. Therefore, I did some work on it to see what it meant and if it might help me in performance and workshop.

“If I believed that my response was heard / by anyone returning to the world, / this flame would stand and never stir again, / But since no man has ever come alive / out of this gulf of Hell, if I hear true,/ I’ll answer, with no fear of infamy”

"If I thought my reply were to one who could ever return to the world, this flame would shake no more; but since, if what I hear is true, none ever did return alive from this depth, I answer you without fear of infamy."               — Dante, Inferno

I found more than one version of the translation as shown above but they all have similar meanings and are from the same place. To begin with I was unaware that the Italian was a quote and not crafted by Eliot himself. It comes from Dante’s 14^th century epic poem called Inferno which explores the 9 stages of hell (‘inferno’ meaning ‘Hell’ in Italian) in a harrowing amount of detail.

The quotation seems rather irrelevant placed by itself and not in the context of Eliot’s poem – he was rather obsessive over Dante’s work; this is not the first time Dante has cropped up in T. S. Eliot’s poems. The quotation comes from Dante’s exploration of the eighth circle of Hell, where he meets a man named Guido who is condemned for the rest of his life, and doesn’t even have his own body anymore, he is just a flame (“this flame would shake no more.”) Guido refuses to tell Dante why he has been sent to such a deep level of Hell as he has never met someone who can leave the place and fears people on earth with find out what he did. He is afraid that his reputation will be ruined. However, since he believes it is impossible for Dante to leave, he tells him of his sins anyway, but of course Dante does return from Hell.

But why has Eliot included the quote before The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock? There are varying perspectives on this, one of which is that it is an indication of Prufrock’s self-obsessed worries of his own reputation – something that might prove interesting to explore as a character exercise – and another of which is that the poem is about Prufrock’s living hell, and his pretence in being a good person.

These varying ideas and ambiguity allow for a variety of theatrical opportunity. Maybe many versions of Prufrock’s character could be portrayed – good and bad? This research has added new depth to the poem for me, and I will aim to apply some of this to my performance, whatever form it should take!