Description:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>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 <jats:italic>Inferno</jats:italic>, 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 <jats:italic>mouvance</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>variance</jats:italic> 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 <jats:italic>Inferno</jats:italic>, and how that performance of error may be a source of queer pleasure.</jats:p>