“For this paper I am tracing the implicit and explicit references to the multifaceted figure of Orpheus in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Dante only explicitly names Orpheus once in his Divine Comedy, upon seeing him within the Limbo for intellectuals. Yet the function of the Orpheus figure in the Divine Comedy, similar to his overall function in literature, is that of a chimera. The shade of Orpheus residing in Dante’s Limbo serves only as the mold for the multiple imprints the figure leaves throughout the text.”    — Leah Schwebel, “Dante’s Metam-Orpheus: the Unspoken Presence of Orpheus in the Divine Comedy,” Hirundo: The McGill Journal of Classical Studies, Vol.4 (2005-06)

The essay, originally published in Hirundo: The McGill Journal of Classical Studies, is featured in a preview on Medievalists.net.