Bolata, Emmanuel Jayson V. 2022. “Disease, Death, and Destruction: Dante and Boccaccio’s Second Coming and Interstices of Filipino Reception.” In Joyce L. Arriola (ed.), Himaya: Panitikan ng Pagbabanyuhay, 47-71. Manila: National Commission for Culture and the Arts.
The present paper examines the “second coming” of Dante Alighieri and Giovanni Boccaccio through Filipino reception. The four Florentine “presences” in the Filipino milieu are: 1) the 1917 adaptation of La Divina Commedia by Rosendo Ignacio, 2) the 2013 reception to Dan Brown’s Inferno, when Manila was called the “gates of hell,” 3) Resty Mendoza Ceña’s Impyerno (2017) and 4) Virgilio S. Almario’s Dekameron (2021). Intertextualities and interstices of these receptions share the common themes of disease, death, and destruction. Reading such texts in light of health, the paper attempts to extract meanings and lessons relevant to our current struggle against the COVID-19 pandemic.
