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Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

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Jorge Luis Borges, “Inferno, V, 129” (1981)

December 14, 2021 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

jorge-luis-borges-inferno-author-photograph

Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges makes reference to the characters of Paolo and Francesca. The full text of the poem appears as follows:

Dejan caer el libro, porque ya saben
que son las personas del libro.
(Lo serán de otro, el máximo,
pero eso qué puede importarles.)
Ahora son Paolo y Francesca,
no dos amigos que comparten
el sabor de una fábula.
Se miran con incrédula maravilla.
Las manos no se tocan.
Han descubierto el único tesoro;
han encontrado al otro.
No traicionan a Malatesta,
porque la traición requiere un tercero
y sólo existen ellos dos en el mundo.
Son Paolo y Francesca
y también la reina y su amante
y todos los amantes que han sido
desde aquel Adán y su Eva
en el pasto del Paraíso.
Un libro, un sueño les revela
que son formas de un sueño que fue soñado
en tierras de Bretaña.
Otro libro hará que los hombres,
sueños también, los sueñen.
A translated version of this same poem may be found here.
Borges made plenty of references to Dante in his writings, some of which have been posted on our site before. See other Borges citings here and here.

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: 1981, Argentina, Buenos Aires, Inferno, Paolo and Francesca, Poetry, Spanish

Carlos Martínez Moreno, El Infierno (1981)

February 17, 2021 By Jasmine George, FSU '24

“This last novel by Uruguayan writer and defense attorney Martínez Moreno, who died in exile in 1986, depicts the revolt of Uruguay’s Tupamaro urban guerillas and their suppression by the military in the early 1970s. Using true accounts of kidnapping, torture and murder from political detainees whom he defended while living in Uruguay, Martínez Moreno fashions a dreamlike yet brutally realistic story of a police state. His book borrows chiefly from The Inferno in Dante’s Divine Comedy. In this modern-day hell, wealthy Uruguayan bankers and prosecutors are kidnapped by the Tupamaros; army colonels and police officers learn more effective ways to torture political prisoners from the ‘cold, calculating’ North American ‘adviser.'”   —Publishers Weekly, 1988

For more on the novel and its relationship to Dante’s poem, see Efraín Kristal’s “What Is, Is Not: Dante in Tomas Eloy Martínez’s Purgatorio,” Bulletin of Latin American Research 31.4 (2012): 473-484 (accessible here).

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: 1981, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Inferno, Latin America, Literature, Novels, Politics, Revolution, Uruguay, Violence

Marvel Comics, Ka-Zar the Savage #9-12 (1981-1982)

May 25, 2019 By Professor Arielle Saiber


“In 1982, Marvel Comics incorporated Dante Alighieri into their superhero universe in Ka-Zar the Savage Issues #9-12. Apparently, Dante based the Inferno on a pre-historic, Atlantean amusement park, one where cultists killed Beatrice in order to summon inter-dimensional demons. Dante managed to defeat the cultists with his prayers, but they return to power seven centuries later to attempt to summon their demon-lords again. That leaves it up to Ka-zar the Savage to climb down an animatronic Hell to finish what Dante started.”  –Paul Jenizm

(Contributed by Paul Jenizm)

Categories: Visual Art & Architecture, Written Word
Tagged with: 1981, 1982, Abandon All Hope, Beatrice, Comics, Demons, Gates of Hell, Hell, Inferno

An American Werewolf In London (1981)

November 28, 2018 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

In John Landis’ 1981 cult classic An American Werewolf In London, at 65:30 you can see a bust of Dante Alighieri in the Doctor’s study.

You can watch the full movie on Amazon Prime, Youtube, Google Play, Vudu, and on iTunes.

Categories: Visual Art & Architecture
Tagged with: 1981, Face of Dante, Films, Horror, Sculptures

Asteroid 2999 Dante

July 25, 2011 By Professor Arielle Saiber

2999-dante-asteroid
2999 Dante, named after Dante Alighieri, is a small main belt asteroid discovered in 1981 by Norman G. Thomas.

See source (Schmadel, Lutz D. (2003). Dictionary of Minor Planet Names: Prepared on Behalf of Commission 20 Under the Auspices of the International Astronomical Union. Springer. p. 247.)  on Amazon.

Categories: Odds & Ends
Tagged with: 1981, Asteroids, Science

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How to Cite

Coggeshall, Elizabeth, and Arielle Saiber, eds. Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture. Website. Access date.

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