canto 28

Dante's Canto XXVIII Dante begins the opening of Canto XXVIII with a rhetorical question. Virgil and he have just arrived in the Ninth Abyss of the Eighth Circle of hell. In this pouch the Sowers of Discord and Schism are continually wounded by a demon with a sword. Dante poses a question to the reader: Who, even with untrammeled words and many attempts at telling, ever could recount in full the blood and wounds that …

…was impossible to ever put into words. By pretending he could not express the image and then by fully expressing it, Dante is reminding the reader of his extraordinary talent and he is also forcing the reader to read more careful. After examining this single passage from Dante's Inferno, I! came to a new understanding of the relationship between Dante and La Commedia , as well as between Dante's images and his poetic task. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**