Divine Mimesis

Written between 1963 and 1967, The Divine Mimesis, Pasolini’s imitation of the early cantos of the Inferno, offers a searing critique of Italian society and the intelligentsia of the 1960s. It is also a self-critique by the author of The Ashes of Gramsci (1957) who saw the civic world evoked by that book fading absolutely from view. By the mid-1960s, Pasolini theorized, the Italian language had sacrificed its connotative expressiveness for the sake of a denuded technological language of pure communication. In this context, he projects a ‘rewrite’ of Dante’s Commedia in which two historical embodiments of Pasolini himself occupy the roles of the pilgrim and guide in their underworld journey.

Scrisa intre 1963 si 1967, Divina Mimesis, imitatia lui Pasolini a primelor cantece ale Infernului, ofera o critica apriga a societatii italiene si a inteligentelor din anii 1960. Este, de asemenea, o autocritica a autorului Cenusii lui Gramsci (1957), care a vazut ca lumea civica evocata de acea carte se estompeaza absolut din vedere.