Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture
In Episode 6 of Season 3 of the HBO television series Succession, Kendall Roy describes the planned theme of his upcoming 40th birthday: “ End Times: Weimar meets Carthage meets Dante meets AI and antibiotic-resistant superbugs.”
Succession has been featured multiple times on our website: see another reference from Season 1 here and a promotional poster citing here.
Italian musicians Claver Gold and Murubutu released their collaborative album Infernum (stylized Infernvm) on March 31, 2020. The hip-hop/rap album features songs that make reference to characters and features of Dante’s Inferno including “Paolo e Francesca”, “Antinferno”, “Ulisse”, and “Selva Oscura”. This album will be discussed by scholar Francesco Ciabattoni in his contribution to the forthcoming volume Dante Alive.
For more information about the album, view its Discogs entry here.
The complete album can also be found on a playlist here.
Italian death metal band Kyterion released their album titled Inferno I on July 22, 2016. The track titles and songs make frequent reference to the text of the Divine Comedy including “La selva de’ suicidi”, “Limbo”, and “L’etterno dolore”. This album will be discussed by scholar Francesco Ciabattoni in his contribution to the forthcoming volume Dante Alive.
The Metal Archives User “Samtropy” has this to say about the album:
“This is the first of trilogy Black/Death metal interpretation of Dante’s Divine Comedy by a band of anonymous Italians.
“As a concept, it’s pretty interesting: turning Dante’s words (in their original Florentine vernacular) into relentless song-sized chunks furious blackened death metal. If you’re short on time, the takeaway is: listen to this if that idea sounds good to you. Don’t if it doesn’t.” [. . .] –User “Samtropy”, The Metal Archives, June 8th, 2020 (retrieved November 29, 2021)
The full text of this archival review is available here.
A music video for one of the songs (“Gerione”), as well as other videos from the band, can be found here.
See our post about another metal adaptation of the Inferno here.
“Small craft brewing operation decorated with imagery inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy — the brewery gets its name from Dante’s nine circles of hell. Fortunately, the beer is cold, and tasty, and often a good pairing with the abundance of Asian restaurants in the area.” –description on the San Diego Reader
“Lager up, sinners, or wait till the next batch. . . While the Japanese rice lager they served abroad wasn’t served at the opening, an Americanized version of the beer, dubbed Limbo, was.” [. . .] –Ian Anderson, San Diego Reader, August 21, 2017 (retrieved November 27, 2021)
Learn more about Circle 9 Brewing on their FaceBook page here. (Note: The official website for the brewery appears to be inoperable as of posting.)
“This isn’t news but every broadcaster in KCMO mentioned it anyway, take a look at this new joint wherein locals can order gourmet fake tacos.
“And then there’s this passage that might or might not be a review: ‘Upon reaching the Third Circle of Hell, Dante and Virgil find souls of gluttons who are overlooked by a worm-monster Cerberus. Sinners in this circle of Hell are punished by being forced to lie in a vile slush that is produced by never-ending icy rain.'” —Tony’s Kansas City, January 24, 2019 (retrieved November 27, 2021)
Read more about Guy Fieri’s new restaurant here.
