Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Jack Hirschman’s "Dantesque" is a stark and haunting vision that merges personal, historical, and literary elements into a surreal narrative. Dedicated to Rico Lebrun, an Italian-American artist known for his Dante-inspired works and paintings of the Holocaust, the poem moves fluidly between the symbolic and the real, the personal and the collective. Hirschman’s reference to Dante immediately signals an engagement with themes of exile, suffering, and moral reckoning.

The poem begins abruptly, with an unnamed man running up and crying, "Dante is dead." The speaker’s response—"I said, of course."—implies that Dante’s death is not a revelation but an inevitability, as if the weight of history has already determined it. The urgency in the man’s words—"the hearse was coming down the road, get up."—creates a surreal tension, as though the death of Dante is not merely a literary or historical event but something ongoing, something the speaker must witness or participate in. Yet, the speaker refuses—"I said no, of course, and made the sign of the cross / as he begged." The act of crossing oneself suggests a moment of reverence or resignation, reinforcing the gravity of the scene.

As the hearse arrives, the poem shifts into an unsettling transformation. The speaker is physically overtaken—"When his body came over me I reached up hugged it was dragged / how many years you can guess to a pit at the edge of town." The language is breathless, almost collapsing under its own weight, mirroring the speaker’s own forced movement toward an unknown fate. The ambiguous "his body" could refer to Dante’s, to Lebrun’s, or even to the weight of history itself. The passage of "how many years" suggests that this is not a single moment but an extended ordeal, a dragging through time, as if Dante’s death—or what he represents—has been unfolding for generations.

Then comes the most striking metamorphosis: "I had grown older, my sex changed in the embrace." This sudden transformation adds another layer of meaning. The speaker, once passive, becomes an active bearer of Dante’s body, taking on the role of Lucia, the saintly figure in Inferno who sends Beatrice to guide Dante. This shift not only blurs the boundaries between self and other but also between gender and identity, suggesting a deep internalization of history, art, and suffering. If the speaker becomes Lucia, then Dante is no longer merely a poet but an almost Christ-like figure being carried toward salvation—or, perhaps, toward further suffering.

The next line—"The pit was full of Jews."—introduces the historical horror that lingers beneath the poem’s surface. The pit evokes images of mass graves, likely referencing the Holocaust, a subject central to Lebrun’s paintings. This sudden historical grounding reconfigures the entire poem. Dante’s death, the dragging of bodies, the sign of the cross—all of it becomes tied to the brutal reality of genocide. The hearse is not merely symbolic; it is the machinery of historical atrocity, a vehicle of death that has carried countless souls to their final, unmarked resting places.

The final lines—"The hearse backed up, they separated us. / And away we flew."—are ambiguous and open-ended. The "they" is left unspecified—are they the historical agents of violence, the souls of the dead, or something more supernatural? The separation suggests that whatever bond was formed between the speaker and the body they carried—be it Dante, Lebrun, or the collective weight of history—must now be broken. The phrase "And away we flew." introduces a ghostly, almost redemptive quality. Does this signal an ascent, a release from suffering? Or is it an ironic departure, an escape from responsibility?

Hirschman’s "Dantesque" is a compressed epic, condensing literary legacy, historical trauma, and personal transformation into a brief but harrowing meditation. It situates Dante’s poetic and moral vision within the landscape of modern atrocity, implying that the Inferno is not merely a medieval vision but an ongoing reality. The fusion of Dante, Lebrun, and the Holocaust creates a layered reckoning with art’s role in witnessing suffering. By merging the allegorical with the real, Hirschman suggests that the passage through history, like Dante’s descent into Hell, is not just something to observe but something to be physically carried, embodied, and ultimately transformed by.

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