Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture
“In ‘Join the Club’ (2006), Tony has a recurring coma-dream in which he checks into Room 728 (i.e., level seven) at the Omni Hotel in Costa Mesa, using the identity of non-mafia civilian Kevin Finnerty. When the hotel elevator is out of commission, Tony descends a red staircase, slips, and falls to level five. Tony’s surgeon, Dr. Plepler, tells Tony’s wife, sisters and daughter they’re lucky Tony’s at a Level 1 trauma center. (Level one is Limbo[42]).” —Wikipedia
“Australian goth-electro band the Tenth Stage has a self-titled track (2006) that describes the singer’s descent past the nine stages of Dante’s poem to a 10th stage of Hell.” —Wikipedia
“The comic book series Detective Dante is loosely based on the Divine Comedy. Not only is the protagonist named Dante, but the whole series is divided into three parts called Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. The first issues in particular contain many references and textual quotations of Dante’s poem.” –Contributor Alessio Aletta
The series was created by Lorenzo Baroli and Roberto Recchioni. It was published by Eura Editoriale from 2005-2007.
See the gallery of cover images on the Grand Comics Database.
Contributed by Alessio Aletta (University of Toronto)
“I challenge this romantic notion of love. I see this Beatrice we know as an invention of Dante’s imagination. Here Dante, near death, is remembering the young beautiful Beatrice as he conjured her, never even having had an intimate conversation or ever having touched her. Did he regret having constrained himself by other peoples’ standards? Or did it bring him peace to keep her safely, purely, in his head? Did she know? Did she love him back? As he lay dying he imagines she is on the other side waiting to greet him. His isolated hand reaches out longingly but touches her only on the very pages that he wrote.” —Heidi Wastweet
Heidi Wastweet is a leading American Medallist and sculptor working in the San Francisco Bay area. In conjunction with a wide variety of private mints she has produced over 1000 coins, medals, and tokens since 1987. […]”.
—American Medallic Sculpture Association
Contributed by Ying Zheng
“At least 50 English translations of The Inferno — the first volume of Dante’s three-part epic — have appeared in the 20th century alone. And now we have another, by the Yorkshire-born poet Sean O’Brien. O’Brien’s is a brave undertaking, given the scores of august literary figures who have attempted the task in previous centuries, often obscuring Dante’s brilliance in the process.
“O’Brien’s Inferno is touted by the publishers as ‘the most fluent, grippingly readable English version of Dante yet’.” –Ian Thomson, The Spectator, 2006
Read the full review here.
