Art, Symbol & Imagination
The First Steps across Cocytus
The two travellers stand among many heads emerging from a flat, dark surface beneath distant rocky walls. At the beginning of the frozen region a voice warns Dante to watch where he walks. Doré places the small exposed heads close to the visitors’ feet and repeats them into the distance, making each step potentially dangerous. The plate changes the visual language of the journey from burning movement to immobilisation. The caption identifies the warning rather than every inhabitant. The ice and bodies belong to the poem’s constructed punishment of betrayal and should not be read as evidence of a physical afterlife.
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Citation
Gustave Doré (design). "The First Steps across Cocytus" [editorial title]. In Dante's Inferno, Dante Alighieri. New Edition, undated supplied scan, undated edition, Thompson & Thomas. Source scan leaf 221. Lumitheca. /gallery/image/inferno-dore-214
Source details
Editorial title and description. Source details from the Library catalogue.
Full original plate and caption individually inspected; neighbouring canto read. Editorial title. Source tone and intrinsic damage retained; rotation applies only to Gallery derivatives.
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Gustave Doré (design). The First Steps across Cocytus. Dante's Inferno. Scan leaf 221. Lumitheca. https://lumitheca.com/gallery/image/inferno-dore-214