The Three Beasts of Dante in Pasolini. From the Divine Comedy to the Divine Mimesis

During the ideological crisis of the 1950s, through the studies of Gianfranco Contini and Antonio Gramsci, the Divine Comedy proposed itself as an authorial, existential and political model and as a multilingual model, to which Auerbach's concept of Mimesis was added from 1957. A concept already prophetically sensitive to the arrival of neo-capitalism in the 1960s, which coincided, not by chance, with the triumph of the neoavant-garde and the Gruppo 63. An artistic witness to the agonizing struggle against this arrival is La Divina Mimesis, an unfinished remake of Dante's poem, in which Pier Paolo Pasolini depicts the crisis of his mimetic poetics in the encounter between his 1950s self and his 1960s self. The characterization of the three beasts constitutes a sociolinguistic framework in which the author-actor does not renounce allegorical dialectics, identifying, in each one of them (lion-illusion, lion-superbia, she-wolf-conformism), the evil he recognizes in himself and in reality.

Automated summary

During the ideological crisis of the 1950s, the Divine Comedy emerged as a model for authors, existentialists, and politicians, as well as a multilingual model. Auerbach's concept of Mimesis was added in 1957, anticipating the arrival of neo-capitalism in the 1960s, coinciding with the rise of the neoavant-garde and the Gruppo 63. Pier Paolo Pasolini's La Divina Mimesis, an unfinished remake of Dante's poem, depicts the crisis of his mimetic poetics in the encounter between his 1950s self and his 1960s self. The characterization of the three beasts serves as a sociolinguistic framework in which the author-actor identifies the evil within himself and in society.