Paolo
"O anime affanate, venite a noi parlar, s'altri nol niega!"
“O battered souls, if One does not forbid it, speak with us!"
(Dante's Inferno, Canto 5)
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I feel her hands snap shut,
the feel of quaking steel.
No longer my own, her hips twist.
Her arms pull me into plummet.
My shoulders snarl against
the vapor stone of her palms.
My head stitched to her hollow chest.
I leave my words with you, Poeta.
I follow her in this, our waltz,
as the sulfur aches between us.
(Sadly, this is one of those drafts that’s fallen by the way side, which bothers me because I want to know what this draft has to say. At this point, I the draft obviously begs for more length. I’m going to try generating some fresh language and tinker with it. I would appreciate any thoughts or criticism. Dr. Davidson suggested I veer away from expected language of this circle of Hell. Trouble is, I don’t know where to go. )
Billy,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I really like the thought of giving voice to Paulo when it is really only Francesca's words that Dante gives us access to in Inferno. Paulo only weeps, so much so that Dante-pilgrim faints. Dr. Davidson may be right, however, words like twist, plummet, sulfur, and perhaps even waltz are a bit expected (see how Dante-poet describes the wind and the lovers himself). Your draft, however, doesn't seem to gesture toward the extreme emotion Paulo exhibits in Canto 5. Your Paulo seems more jaded, less "woe is me and my love." One question I asked when reading is, when is this set? Are you giving voice to the same Paulo Dante meets? Or could this be reoriented around the same Paulo, but years after Dante-pilgrim has passed through? Could we be talking with Paulo, still in hell, but in our current time? How might Paulo view his "love" after centuries of torment? How might the constant presence of Francesca irritate him? In short, how might you re-imagine the character Dante presents? Or you could also choose to step away from Dante altogether, using his character and epigraph to merely inform the draft. What if, instead of Paulo, we talk with a present-day man? How would Paulo's story inform the present-day? Of if we did talk with Paulo, could he maybe be giving a sort of warning to today's man? How might he warn men against his own actions now that he's had time in hell to regret his actions? These are just some ideas, but I think, in general, you may want to get away from Dante as much as you can and focus instead on some new view Paulo has of himself and what he did or some new view he has of Francesca.
-me
I think this is a great start and I agree with the comment above. I think taking the character out of the setting of the Inferno could bring fresh language to the text as well as the context. Perhaps create a juggling act between a more modern setting and that of the Inferno. A way to do this might be to take the everyday mundane images that may come from a couple and nuance it by comparing such images to those of Dante. How, then, could you give a voice to a character who has none? Maybe emphasize this lack of voice in newer drafts by making the modern day Paulo silent, yet write his thoughts within the poem. Maybe provide a juxtaposed sense of voice as another way of approaching the draft by playing with the idea of having him say something within the context and then think something else in which thought and voice could be blurred at the end of the draft. An example of shifting the language into the more modern might be to use such words as "waltz" and connote it to the ritualistic "waltz" of the morning where you can add the more mundane aspects of such a situation. Instead of "sulfer aches between us" you could say "the bills ache between us." These are pretty average ideas, but you can probably see what I'm getting at.
ReplyDeleteMore specificity would definitely help this piece. There are a lot of action verbs and visceral adjectives, but the characters would benefit from additional detail. The opening quote gives the work required context, but what if the piece left Dante behind altogether. Building characters from scratch might open new doors for development.
ReplyDeleteAlso, try and replace "feel" with another word. For example, "the ice of quaking steel."