Inferno in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

One example of Dante's influence that I thought of when reading Inferno is T. S. Eliot's epigraph of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, a work we read last year. If you remember from last year, Prufrock is a modernist poem by the very influential poet T. S. Eliot that expresses what is apparently the interior monologue of a frustrated and isolated man. Interestingly, Eliot uses a quote from Canto 27 of Inferno as an epigraph for the poem. The quote is:

S`io credesse che mia risposta fosse

A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,

Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.

Ma perciocchè giammai di questo fondo

Non tornò vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,

Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Or translated: 

If I but thought that my response were made

to one perhaps returning to the world,

this tongue of flame would cease to flicker.

But since, up from these depths, no one has yet

returned alive, if what I hear is true,

I answer without fear of being shamed.

It comes from one of the bolgias in the 8th circle, specifically the one for those who are counsellors to people who commit fraud. Dante is having a conversation with Guido de Montefeltro, a Ghibelline who advised Boniface VIII (so Dante was not a fan of his). The quote is basically saying that he feels comfortable talking to Dante as he can't get out of hell and tell his story, which does not end up happening. It's thematically relevant to Prufrock in referencing expressing one's emotions and thoughts, something the speaker of Prufrock struggles to do.

Eliot was apparently greatly influenced by Dante and there are many references to Dante's works in his poetry. I think it is funny but also maybe slightly extra that Eliot uses the original Italian as the epigraph to an English poem. The Inferno has definitely had a great influence on Western literature and I thought this was an interesting example of a work that we have previously read in school.