ABSTRACT
Salvador Dali's illustrations of Dante's Commedia are so typical of the Catalan artist that it is hard to believe that they may be literal in their engagement with the medieval Italian text. Dali's appropriation of Commedia leads to identification: he had been reading Dante's great work with passionate interest, he said, and had discovered that it reflected his own spiritual evolution. Dali is less literal in his visualization of Dante's descriptions, as in Blasphemers; or rather he literally adheres to Dante's words instead of his setting. When Dante's scene fails to engage Dali, it is Dante's words that set off Dali's 'delirium of interpretation'. Dali similarly departs from the Commedia's setting in his illustration of The Hoarders. Reference to the elementary nature of human drives, a key theme in Dali's own work, defines most of the Inferno and Purgatorio plates.
