Prufrock

The epigraph at the beginning of “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock” refers to lines taken from Dante’s “Inferno”. The words are spoken by the character of Count Guido da Montefellro, a soul being punished in the Eighth chasm of Hell for the attempt to buy absolution in advance of committing a crime. Guido explains that he is speaking freely to Dante only because he believes Dante to be one of the dead who could never return to earth to repeat what is said to him. Roughly translated, the epigraph means that if the speaker knew his...