The voice astray: Caroline Bergvall’s Dante

Abstract

Abstract This article analyses ‘Via: 48 Dante Variations’ by Caroline Bergvall (1962-) and considers the kind of Dante it performs. ‘Via,’ composed of the first tercet of Dante’s Inferno, accompanied by 47 (or 48) English translations of the tercet ordered alphabetically, was first divulged as a sonic piece and was then published in diverse textual iterations, with variants among the several written forms and between the spoken and written. I explore the links between Bergvall’s project and medieval textual practices and textualities, particularly the creative instability of works that exhibit mouvance and variance within a hybrid aural/textual culture. Engaging with recent critical work on queer philology and with Ovid’s myth of Echo, I consider how Bergvall’s ‘Via’ can be said to perform error, extending the predicament of the Dantean ‘I’ at the opening of Inferno, and how that performance of error may be a source of queer pleasure.

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