INTRODUCTION 
According to Poet T.S. Eliot, “I do not think I can explain everything, even to myself; but as I still, after forty years,regard his poetry as the most persistent and deepest influence upon my own verse…” (Deyab). In his poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, you can clearly see just how highly Eliot regards fellow poet Dante Alighieri through the adaptation of styles, themes, and general style into his own work. But what makes this poem the clearest omage to Alighieri is the direct use of an excerpt from Inferno from The Divine Comedy as the epigraph. Translated from italian, the epigraph reads: 

If I thought that my answer were to one who might ever return to the world, this flame would shake no more; but since from this depth none ever returned alive, if what I hear is true, I answer you without fear of infamy (Alighieri, 287).
 

Because this epigraph was originally placed without translation, we can only assume Eliot wanted the reader to translate the passage themselves, and really hone in on what Aligheri was all about through this Canto, or show just how obsessed he was with Aligheri that he knew the original work written in Italian. As we work our way down through Eliot’s poem, we can see that he has references from Inferno all throughout the entirety of the work, from the structure, to the characters, to the overall theme. Through Eliot, we not only get to see how important Dante was as an influence to his writing, but how important these classic authors were to modernists in general. With the “classicist roots” from Dante weaved throughout, Eliot was able to become one of the founding writers in the modernist movement.  In this essay, I will explore how the characters, structure, setting, and overall theme of T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock parallels' Inferno, the first part of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy.
Eliot and Alighieri. 

Dante Alighieri both inspires and intimidates readers and writers alike, which could be why Dante is thought of in the same light as Shakespeare for many American authors and poets. For T.S. Eliot, Dante was the strongest influence on his work, where the mystical and spiritual aspects from The Divine Comedy, specifically Inferno, can be found in many of his pieces. While speaking at the Italian Institute in 1950, he stated, “I do not think I can explain everything [about my debt to Dante]: but…I still, after forty years, regard his poetry as the most persistent and deepest influence upon my own verse” (Hay pg. 50). He started from Dante, and spent a lifetime getting as close to him as possible, to the point where he could afford to “write like Dante” but still speak like himself (Cambon pg. 238). In other words, Eliot has the same structure, theme, and overall presence of Dante, but his voice can still be heard throughout the piece. 
   
Being able to retain a strong voice while still having such a strong influence is something an author cannot master with ease. For Eliot, being able to master this flawlessly could be due to the three “lessons” that Dante taught him within his writing. First, Dante taught him that the “great master of a language should be the greatest servant of it” (Hay pg. 50). The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is a perfect example of how he displays this lesson; the experimental style and language that Eliot uses can be seen throughout the entirety of the poem, where self-irony, religious allusions, and playful metaphors run rampant. For instance, in lines 15-17 it states:

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening (Eliot lines 15-17)

This is one of the more extended metaphors that Eliot has in Prufrock and is comparing the city streets that he walks along to a cat. Even though he never used the specific word “cat”, it is clear from words such as “muzzle” “tongue”, “licked”, and “back” that we can only assume he is talking about a cat. 

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Secondly, Dante taught Eliot the “lesson of width of emotional range” (Hay pg. 51). In other words, Eliot learned that a true poet should understand emotions better than the average person. And lastly, Eliot learned that “Europe is the whole” (Hay pg. 51).  In The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock, these two lessons are also shown throughout the text, where the emotions conveyed by Prufrock could only be shown by an expert in such, and the locations for many of his texts, including The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufock, are all centered around Europe. One specific example is the yearning that Prufrock has for a “classic relationship” that Eliot is able to capture simply from his words. Prufrock “has known all of the''eyes” and ''arms”, which are the physical parts of a woman, but what he doesn’t say he “knows all” of is their heart (Eliot lines 50, 62). In other words, even though Prufrock might be familiar with the physical aspects of a woman, he has never felt any sort of domestic love from one. For Eliot, being able to convey such a complex emotion such as this one is something that can only be taught by a great like Dante.

 

PARALLELS AND DIFFERENCES

STRUCTURE
Because of the strong influence that Dante had on him, many of Eliot's works tend to emulate the rhythm, style, and overall structure that Dante possesses. This imitation does not discredit Eliot as a great author, but rather it connects him to Dante in a way that only a poet could understand. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is one of the most noteworthy instances where Eliot directly imitates the same structure that Dante had in many of his poems. Specifically, both Dante and Eliot use a “cantus firmus” structure, or a chant-like melody, wavering between both song and prose. What Eliot does differently than Dante when it comes to this structure is that he styles it more like a dramatic monologue, where it almost mimics a soloquie that a character would give during a play. 

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Despite this difference, there are still some stylistic similarities that both Dante and Eliot have when it comes to these two works. Specifically, both are “cyclic” in nature; they represent a cycle. For Dante, the circles are a bit more literal, where each layer of Hell in Inferno is an actual circle, but The Divine Comedy in general represents the cyclic journey that Guido takes through Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradioso (Heaven). Unlike Guido’s cycle, Prufrock’s cycle is more for the reader. This is seen through the first line of the poem, where it reads “Let us go then, you and I” (Eliot line 1). The “then” represents one of the many interactions that occur when a reader indulges in the poem; the reading process is never-ending, just like a circle of Hell in Inferno (Bostick).  

 

SETTING
Not only is the “reading process” never-ending as the circles of Hell are in Inferno, but so is the dim worldview that Prufrock has; the outside world is his own personal hell full of evil, perplexity, and mystery (Mokraini-Barkaoui pg. 37). This is shown in lines 12 -18, where it states: 

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit (Eliot, lines 12-18)

The urban world full  of “cheap hotels” with streets that have an “insidious intent” is what Prufrock thinks of his own hell. But more specifically, it is what makes London itself hell for him. He feels trapped by the artificial nature that is found in these city streets, which inevitably leads him to feel there is “... time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions,”(Mokraini-Barkaoui pg. 37). He has time to constantly think about his life; what went wrong, what happened, and how he should have acted instead of how he actually did act.

 

While Prufrock is trapped in his own personal hell, Dante in Inferno is moving through the actual circles of hell, where these “insidious intents” are more of a literal sense. Beginning in Canto Three, each circle of Hell becomes smaller and smaller as he journeys through, where we get to see how each circle punishes sinners in their own ways (Aligheri). 

 

In both Dante’s hell and in Prufrock’s hell, one element that is really apparent is the presence of fog. In The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, this “yellow fog” is everywhere; it “ rubs its back upon the window-panes” and lingers “ upon the pools that stand in drains,” (Eliot lines 16, 18). For Prufrock, this fog’s lingering and almost provocative behavior can be seen as what he desires most; love (Hakac pg. 52). He wants to feel this overwhelming and all-encompassing sense of love, similarly to how the fog is all around the city streets of London. For Dante, fog also symbolizes a type of  love, but in a bit of a different way. In the first circle of Hell, we find the “unbaptized” being punished by having to linger and make their way through fog (Aligheri). For them, this fog is almost like the veil before they can get to “God’s love”. But unfortunately for them, they will never see through it as they were never baptized. 

THEMES
The theme of secrecy between both Guido and Prufrock runs rampant throughout both Inferno and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. For instance, in the epigraph, Guido is telling Dante his “secret”, which is what he did to end up in the eighth circle of hell, and he believes that nobody will know his secret, due to the fact that Dante cannot leave hell in his mind (Alighieri pg. 34). Prufrock, however, is telling his secret to the reader, which is shown specifically in line one and line four, where he states “Let us go then, you and I,….. Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets” (Eliot lines 1-4).  Because of this, we can assume that not only Guido is concerned with his reputation, but Prufrock is just as well. However when it comes to Prufrock, he is more concerned about his own mental state/personal hell, whereas Guido is concerned about protecting his reasons on why he ended up in the Circle of the Fraudulent. 

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Along with secrecy, the theme of shame is present in both the epigraph that is spoken by Guido and Prufrock. With Guido, he feels ashamed of what he has done to end up in the eighth circle, which is later revealed in Dante’s 
Inferno that he persuaded Pope Boniface VIII to absolve him once he invaded the fortress of Palestrina (Alighieri pg, 34) . However, Guido dies before the Pope absolves him, causes him to be in the Circle of the Fraudulent (Alighieri pg. 34). In the case of Prufrock, he feels shameful because he feels he is leading a double life;  he feels he should act one way, but he ends up behaving in a completely different manner. This is evident throughout the text, but specifically in lines 51-54, he says:

I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume? (Eliot, lines 51-54)

In this passage, Prufrock says he does not know how he should proceed with life’s daily tasks; he knows the way to act to please, but does he actually want to do it? This indecision leads him to feel this duplicity between how he wants to act and how he actually behaves out in the real world.

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Despite the themes of secrecy and shame being present throughout both Dante and Eliot’s works, one of the most prominent themes that appear is the theme of loneliness. In Inferno, this is particularly present in Canto XI, in which Dante enters the Seventh Circle of Hell (Aligheri). In this circle, those who committed harm against themselves are present in the second sub-circle out of three, and their punishment is to be constantly reminded of what they lost and what they have given up (Aligheri). By having this punishment, Dante is creating the loss and loneliness that is felt when they commit their sin. Similarly, Prufrock feels this sense of loneliness. However, his stems from his daily routine. In lines 49-51, he states:
 

For I have known them all already, known them all—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, 
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons (Eliot lines 49-51)

He knows “all” of the days, but he has not really done anything worth of accomplishment during them, hence why his life is “measured with coffee spoons”. But another root of his loneliness can stem from his lack of communication with others, where, according to Prufrock,  “It is impossible to say just what I mean!” (Eliot line 104). 

 

Another important theme in both Prufrock and Inferno is mortality. For Inferno, this mortality is found all throughout, as Dante is exploring what happens after mortality has ended for sinners through his overall exploration of Hell. But for Prufrock, his mortality is explored in his “personal hell” pre-death. His lingering anxiety of his own mortality is a punishment he is already having, similar to those who are experiencing a punishment in the circles of Hell after they have passed. In lines 120-125, he states: 

I grow old … I grow old …    
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.    
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?    
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.    
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each (Eliot lines 120-125). 

In this stanza, it is perfectly clear that he knows that he is living an almost insignificant life, and at this point his own mortality is a punishment. Therefore, he almost looks forward to his own death; it is like the opposite of Dante. Instead of dying being a punishment for sinners, Prufrock feels that living is his own punishment for his sins.  
 

CHARACTERS
While both Shakespeare and Dante are both classic writers with completely different styles, both Hamlet and Inferno explore the idea of sin. Dante shows what the afterlife is like for sinners through Inferno, but through Hamlet, Shakespeare explores sin before death. For Eliot, both Shakespeare and Dante are conveyed through The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock by mentioning the character of Hamlet. In the poem, the stanza reads:
 

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use, 
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool (Eliot lines 111-119). 

In this part of the poem, Prufrock is contemplating on whether or not he should talk to the “ladies who talk of Michelangelo”. In this specific stanza, he is weighing in on the option of not talking to them, and by referencing the character of Hamlet, it persists on what Prufrock thinks of the negative aspects of himself (Hollahan pg. 93) . He is not in any way like Hamlet: a hero. The character of Hamlet that is referenced as well as Prufrock can also be compared to Dante from Dante’s Inferno. These three characters all have one thing in common; cowardly indecisiveness. Hamlet’s indecisiveness comes from whether or not he wants to kill his Uncle. In Dante’s case, his indecisiveness comes when Vergil comes to him and asks whether or not he wants to proceed in descending into hell (Hollahan pg. 92). Before he actually commits to going down, Dante hesitates cowardly and says he is unable to go on (Hollahan pg. 92) . This is seen in Canto Two, where Dante says:
 

But I, why do I come here? And who allows it? I am not Aeneas, I am not Paul; of this neither I nor others think me worthy. Wherefore, if I yield and come, I fear that the coming may be folly (Alighieri pg. 15). 
 

Finally, Prufrock’s indecisiveness can be seen throughout the entirety of the poem, but specifically in the previously mentioned stanza, where he asks himself whether or not he is heroic and good enough to talk to the ladies, but ultimately deciding that he is not favorable for the ladies. In these two pieces, both of the character’s Dante and Prufrock can be seen comparing themselves to heroic characters which therefore justifies their own weaknesses (Hollahan pg. 93).
   
As well as Shakespearean figures, Prufrock compares himself to two biblical characters in the poem, the first being John the Baptist. In lines eighty one and eighty two, he alludes to this character, saying “Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;” According to the Bible, John the Baptist was the man who baptized Jesus and was decapitated, with his head brought upon a silver platter to Salome, the daughter of Herod who demanded his head in the New Testament. In these lines, Prufrock is again reiterating that he is not a hero like Hamlet or John the Baptist. However along with this recurring theme of heroicness, there is also an illusion to the character of Master Adam from Dante’s Inferno. 
   
In Dante’s Inferno, Master Adam is first introduced in Canto Thirty, where Dante is exploring the shades of the Eighth Circle of Hell. While looking around, he sees a shade that is deceased and ill, and the shade identifies himself as Master Adam (Alighieri pg. 319) . He tells Dante that he was put in this hell because he counterfeited coins in Romania of John the Baptist, but states that Guido, Alexander, and his brother forced him to commit this act (Alighieri pg. 319-320). So, maybe Prufrock is then in turn comparing himself to the character of Master Adam. By saying that he is not like John the Baptist, we can say he is like counterfeit coins, an imitation of a hero. He wants to be like that heroic figure of John the Baptist, but unfortunately, he believes he cannot be like him, the most he can be is a counterfeit version. 
   
The second biblical character that Prufrock compares himself to is the character of Lazarus. In lines ninety four and ninety five, he says “To say: ‘I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all’—“In the bible, Lazarus is the name given to a beggar who would beg for food at a rich man, Dives’, gate. Both the men died; Lazarus was risen to heaven while Dives was brought down to hell (Hultgren pg. 110). Dives asks the prophet Abraham to send Lazarus back to earth to warn his brothers that if they do not change their ways, they will end up like him; in hell (Hultgren pg. 110). Abraham tells him no, that if they do not listen to the prophets already on earth, they would not listen to Lazarus (Hultgren pg. 110) .  Lazarus can be seen in a similar light to Dante, except Dante actually made it out of Hell to warn people of sin. We can also say that Guido is like Dives, he knows he would not be able to make it out of Hell, just like Guido. So, in a way, Prufrock knows he would not be like Lazarus or Dante; a hero. Instead, he is like Guido and Dives; the antihero who knows he will never escape his constant battle. With Guido and Dives, they know they would not escape hell, whereas in Prufrock’s case, he knows he will not escape his constant mental battle.
   
The characters that Prufrock illiterates to in the poem all are a representation of the stages of his downward spiral into his own hell as well as the central hellish themes of Prufrock’s thinking.  This hell that Prufrock creates is alluded to Dante Alighieri’s version of hell, which is seen in part of his Divine Comedy known as Dante’s Inferno. Throughout almost the entirety of the poem, we see how much influence Inferno has had on Eliot’s writing, specifically through his direct quote from Dante’s Inferno in the epigraph. We also see this influence in many of the figures that Prufrock’s illiterates to and compares himself to throughout the poem, such as Hamlet, Lazarus, and John the Baptist, and how they all relate to a character or central theme from Dante’s Inferno.
 

CONCLUSION
As Eliot has rightly said: “Dante is . . . the most universal of poets in the modern languages. That does not mean that he is 'the greatest', or that he is the most comprehensive - there is greater variety and detail in Shakespeare …  Shakespeare gives the greatest width of human passion: Dante the greatest altitude and the greatest depth” (Deyab). 

Despite some not having Dante in their “top influential authors of all time” list like some may have when it comes to Shakespeare, Eliot highly regarded Dante, and used his writings as the primary influence on most, if not all, of his works. From the structure, to the themes, to the characters, Dante’s Inferno  is woven all throughout, especially in the work The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. They both convey what is thought of about Hell, in both a literal and a personal sense. For Prufrock, his hell is both the outside world and his own intrusive thoughts. The same can be said for Guido and Dante in Inferno, where not only are they in literal hell, but their cowardice and indecisiveness parallels Prufrocks. However, what makes Prufrock different is that his Hell is his own mortality. For Prufrock, hell is on Earth, and he is already living in it. Maybe one of Dante’s eight circles of Hell  might save him from his utter despair of living in the desolate city streets of London. 

 

WORKS CITED
Alighieri, Dante. Dante’s Inferno. Edited by Henry Collins Walsh. Indiana University Press. 1971.
Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy, Translated, with Commentary, by Charles S. Singleton: Inferno. Translated by Charles S. Singleton. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 1970.

Bostick, A. (2012). The Overwhelming Question: Refiguring Poetic Failure as Catalyzed Reading in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" . https://scholarship.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/. Retrieved 2022, from https://scholarship.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/bitstream/handle/10066/9056/2012BostickA_thesis.pdf?sequence=1 
 

Cambon, G. (2000). Dante’s Presence in American Literature. Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society, 118, 217–242. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40166560
 

Deyab, Mohammad Shaaban. “‘What Dante Means to Me:’ Dante Alighieri's Influence on T.S. Eliot and Other English Writers.” Transcultural Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, vol. 3, no. 1, 2022, pp. 20–34., https://doi.org/10.21608/tjhss.2022.217282. 
 

Eliot, T.S. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”. Poetry, 6, 3 (June 1915): 130-135.
 

Hay, E. (1983). T. S. Eliot’s Virgil: Dante. The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 82(1), 50–65. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27709117
 

Hakac, John. “The Yellow Fog of ‘Prufrock.’” The Bulletin of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, vol. 26, no. 2, 1972, pp. 52–54, https://doi.org/10.2307/1346502. Accessed 27 Apr. 2022.
 

Hollahan, Eugene. ““A Structural Dantean Parallel in Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock””. American Literature, 42, 1 (March, 1970): 91-93.
 

Hultgren, Arland J. The Parables of Jesus: A Commentary. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company: Grand Rapids, MI. 2002.
 

Mokraini-Barkaoui, S. (2000). The Waste Land and The Love Song Of Alfred J. Prufrock: A Comparative Approximation. webreview. Retrieved April 10, 2022, from http://www.webreview.dz/IMG/pdf/the_waste_land_and_the_love_song_of.pdf