Cartography, eternity, and terror in Dante's Inferno

Abstract

Thispaper explores Dante Alighieri'sCommedia,in the Spanish version, translated and annotated by Narciso Bruzzi (1994),in dialogue with Jorge Luis Borges' reading of it and with some developments by the Argentine author regarding eternity and cartographic writing, including a review of the critical bibliography that addresses the intertextual relationship between both universal writers.Thefirst partexploresthe relationship between verbalization and cartography in Dante's major work,in orden todistinguishboth phenomena as two levels of rationalization of the visionary experience, which is defined as oneroid,in thatit is similar to the dream in its temporality butnotcoincidentwith it in the permanence of the map of the places between different visionary sections. Then, around the punitive function of the infernal space, reviewed by Borges, the notion of eternity is examined, with emphasis on its character of repetition and torture. Finally, taking into account the social function of theCommediaas a prophetic and apocalyptic text, as well as itscontext of production, Dante's Inferno is characterized as a tool of political terror, a precursor of its manifestations in the following centuries.