Abstract
The act of witnessing a process of violence generates testimonies which, in their turn, may foster different reactions not only of a first-hand experience witness but also of a second and even third-hand experience witnesses. Such experiences could be identified in the case of a literary testimony delivered by Dante in his “Divina Commedia”. Bearing witness to the traumas suffered by the characters encountered during his journey inside Inferno, Dante gave account of a first-hand experience which was transposed first into a poetic form and later into distinct visual representations of his literary imagery. The visual perception of the famous book illustrations for Dante’s Inferno transforms the viewers into third-hand experience witnesses. The study intends to analyse the use of perspective, light, main axis and the arrangement of characters as employed by Gustave Doré and William Blake for illustrating the sufferings endured by Paolo and Francesca da Rimini. The analysis aims to reveal the visual effects destined to influence the perception of this specific space of trauma.
Highlights
From a wide perspective the process of witnessing is usually based on the relationship between a subject actively involved in the process and the world to be witnessed
The process of finding himself witness within such experience allowed him to transpose the same experience into a literary imaginary delivered in a poetic form
Witnessing the Second Circle of Inferno, Dante was able to transpose his testimony into a poetic form of Canto V: I came into a place mute of all light, Which bellows as the sea does in a tempest, If by opposing winds it is combated
Summary
From a wide perspective the process of witnessing is usually based on the relationship between a subject actively involved in the process and the world to be witnessed. The testimony that was delivered by Dante impersonating the Pilgrim as the character who was witnessing Inferno, is closely describing the traumatic space by employing powerful metaphors meant to emphasize the terrifying images: a place mute of all light, infernal hurricane that never rests.
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