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==Introduction/Classical Education Nerdiness==
I did a little research on putting Eliot's allusions to Dante's ''Divine Comedy'' into context. It's been a while since I've read the series (junior year of high school, to be exact - sometime around when our medieval studies unit got sidetracked by incessant renditions of Monty Python songs) but I was able to call on some references I still had. 


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======''If I remember little of'' Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ''it's because of this''======


I found it interesting that Eliot switches back and forth between referencing the ''Inferno'' and the ''Purgatorio'' - because it seemed to give a few subtle glimmers of redemption. ''Purgatorio'' has nearly the same trials and sufferings as ''Inferno'' but to a different end: salvation rather than perpetual punishment. It seems that this correlates at least somewhat with the glimmer of peacefulness Eliot includes at the end of ''The Waste Land.''

==Dante References in Context==
'''Line 63: ''Inferno'' [http://www.bartleby.com/20/103.html canto 3 lines 55-57]''' - Canto III is when Dante first enters Hell and where the ''Inferno's'' most famous line - ''Abandon hope, all ye who enter here'' - is found (line 9). Dante already has his guide, Virgil.

'''Line 64: ''Inferno'' [http://www.bartleby.com/20/104.html canto 4 lines 25-27]''' - Within Limbo, Dante meets poets such as Homer, Horace, and Ovid, who weren't particularly bad but never were baptized and thus will never be able to enter Paradise (cf Bartleby link).

'''Line 293: ''Purgatorio'' [http://www.bartleby.com/20/205.html canto 5 line 133]''' - These words are spoken by Pia, a woman who was murdered by her husband. This contributes to Eliot's theme, introduced earlier in ''The Waste Land,'' of violence against women.

'''Line 412: ''Inferno'' [http://www.bartleby.com/20/133.html canto 33 line 46]''' - This excerpt is from Dante's time in the next-to-lowest ring of the lowest circle of hell. He has descended ''almost'' all the way down into the Inferno and is skirting the very deepest pit, but hasn't quite hit rock bottom.

'''Line 428: ''Purgatorio'' [http://www.bartleby.com/20/226.html canto 26 line 148]''' - In contrast to the ''Inferno'' reference in line 412, this excerpt comes from Dante's time on the last/highest tier of the mountain of Purgatory. The lustful souls and love poets who are being purified here haven't quite reached the end of their redemptive suffering yet, but are nearing the end of Purgatory and the triumphant entrance into Paradise.