Original Poem Reprinted Online Here: "A Dream, After Reading Dante's Episode of Paolo And Francesca" by John Keats More Information about the Poet: John Keats This is one of the toughest poems I've ever tried to read. There are so many allusions in this poem and how they interplay as images, as symbols, as references, as points, that I just couldn't (cannot) wrap my head around it. But, I wanted to come back and figure it out the best I could. I can only do my best. But first, this is an Elizabethan sonnet with no line breaks to simulate a continuous movement. So what makes this poem difficult is from the onset the reader and the speaker is in a dream world about a dream world. Meta. Dante's Inferno has so many allusions, so we have to start with the title. Dante's episode of Paolo and Francesca is in Canto V of the Inferno. Here's some good analysis of the scene, here's the most important piece of information to me: "Francesca, accor...
Formerly the RetailMFA, This is the Poetry Blog of Darrell Dela Cruz