The many odes to Dante
Updated On: 31 May, 2024 06:54 AM IST | Mumbai | Rosalyn D`mello
The feminist in me is perplexed by the unflagging eulogising of works of ‘great men’, when the wealth of literature by women lies unassumingly waiting to be ‘discovered’ decade after decade
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A reading of Dante’s cantos in session at the site of his grave in the city of Ravenna in Italy. Pic/Rosalyn D’Mello
As a feminist who is tired of the numerous ways the works of ‘great men’ continue to be worshipped, I’m unlikely to be found reading any of their canonised masterpieces. Not because they aren’t significant, but because I am interested in evolving a consciousness that sidesteps their over-glorified genius. There is such an enormous wealth of contemporary female and queer artists, writers, poets and thinkers whose works are utterly brilliant and exist quietly in relation to each other, without having to compete for sunlight. Yet, funnily enough, as a child, I was obsessed with Shakespeare. Growing up in a neighbourhood that wasn’t predisposed towards literature or intellectual thought, I only knew of the Bard because my mother suggested I begin with him when I joined the school library at age 10 or 11.
So, when one day, Aunty Celia, the mother of one of our friends offered to take my sister and me to a book fair in south Bombay, our parents consented. I gravitated towards one tiny book of Shakespeare’s love sonnets. Ours was not a family that had disposable income to buy books. My sister bought an Archies comic book and I bought this tiny collection of Shakespeare’s love sonnets which included Renaissance paintings. That night onwards I began a ritual of reading at least one sonnet aloud before I slept. It was so silly and yet so cute. Reading it aloud felt like a way of accessing the words and their sounds, because I doubt I ‘got’ their complexity. By uttering each line I felt closer to their essence. I memorised many of the sonnets. My siblings frequently teased me. Indeed, I must have seemed ridiculous.
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