In 2017, Bradford Literature Festival hosted an event that brought classic poetry into the modern day by commissioning poet Anthony Anaxagorou to produce a poem linking Dante’s Inferno to contemporary politics.
Inferno, first published around 1321, is perhaps one of the most famous poems ever written; it’s certainly one of the most enduring, still being studied and revered to this day. Whilst ostensibly a story of one man’s journey through the nine stages of hell, it’s also an acute study of human psychology and what makes us who we are.
Its influences stretch far beyond poetry, with Inferno having inspired works across all mediums in the 700 years since its publication.
To celebrate the poem and link it to modernity, BLF hosted a panel with Anaxagorou, who has published several notable poetry collections including Heritage Aesthetics and After the Formalities. Anaxagorou has appeared at several iterations of the festival, as well as supporting our free school lesson plans with his poetry expertise. He appeared on the panel alongside leading Dante scholar and University of Leeds lecturer Claire Honess and fiction writer Simon Kurt Unsworth, author of The Devil’s Detective and other books.
The trio discussed the lasting legacy of Dante’s Inferno, its influence on contemporary art, as well as how it can be read through the lens of current global conflict. In an era of sweeping political change, constant warfare, international refugee crises and catastrophic climate change, the poem has taken on a whole new resonance.
Following the discussion, Anaxagorou performed his brand-new original poem, Myopia:
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