Re-Membering History: Allegory as Sacrament in Inferno's Prologue Scene

ABSTRACT:The prologue to Dante's Inferno presents a noticeable tension between ambiguous earthly history and its transcendent implications. Memory plays an important role in mediating between these dimensions and is a principal feature of Dante's allegory in the prologue, anticipating the poet's approach later in the Commedia. I propose that in the prologue Dante is engaged in a process of memorialization that shares a lot in common with the sacraments of the Mass and especially with the Eucharist: this has important implications for Dante's allegory, as well as for his language of memory, which departs in significant ways from the classical models that he inherited, reimagining memory as an active and creative principle.