Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture
“Abandon hope all ye who enter here.”
Theme Park World, Bullfrog Productions’ 1999 construction and management simulation game. Upon selecting Halloween World, the Adviser references the inscription upon the gates of hell.
Learn more from Theme Park World’s Wikipedia page here.
Nathan W. Pyle is an author and illustrator based in New York City. He is best known for his book NYC Basic Tips and Etiquette (2014), and his comic series Strange Planet.
You can check out more of Pyle’s work by following him on Instagram, Facebook, and by visiting his website. Additionally, Pyle is releasing a book of Strange Planet comics later this year, which you can check out on Amazon.
Contributed by Dariella Fonseca (Florida State University ’20).
“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)
“Ever wondered what hell would be like for introverts? I think it would be something like this… Abandon all hope, ye introverts who enter here…” — Michelle Connolly, Louder Minds, March 21, 2016
Find out all the circles of hell for introverts here.
“The great poetic example of the blurriness between the everyday and the ever after is Dante’s Inferno, which begins with the narrator ‘midway upon the journey of our life,’ having wandered away from the life of God and into a ‘forest dark.’ That wood, full of untamed animals and fears set loose, leads the unwitting pilgrim to Virgil, who acts as his guide through the ensuing ordeal, and whose Aeneid, itself a recapitulation of the Odyssey, acts as a pagan forerunner to the Inferno. This first canto of the poem, regrettably absent from the Book of Hell, reads as a kind of psychological-metaphysical map, marking the strange route along which one person’s private trouble leads both outward and downward, toward the trouble of the rest of the world.
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“Insecurity is a tomb; these are the kinds of midlife crises from which few people recover. ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here’ is as applicable to certain poisonous habits of mind as to the gates of Hell. One leads, inexorably, to the other.” — Vinson Cunningham, “How the Idea of Hell Has Shaped the Way We Think,” Review of The Penguin Book of Hell in The New Yorker (January 21, 2019)
“The Inferno‘s artistic legacy is huge; Botticelli, Doré, Dali, Rauschenberg, and countless lesser known artists have created works inspired by the poem. It has inspired a movie (acted out by paper puppets) and even became a video game. Most artists seem to stay true to the poem, focusing on ‘the poets’ Dante, his guide Virgil, and Inferno‘s diverse cast of demons and damned. Rauschenberg approached Inferno by creating a painting for each of the 36 cantos. As for me, I’ve decided to remove Dante and Virgil, and instead create a painting for each ring of hell, with the exception of Rings Seven (a triptych – 3 paintings) and Eight (a deciptych – 10 paintings). I wanted to compose each painting in a way that illustrates what a ‘normal day in hell’ would be like. In order for me to accomplish this, I had to take some personal liberties with certain details within the Inferno, but I did my best to stay as true to the text as I could.
“Inferno was hosted by Gallery 1988, and opened on September 9th, 2009 (9/9/9). If you’re interested in any of these paintings, please contact Gallery 1988 for availability.” [. . .] —Luke Chueh on his work, August, 2009.
Pictured above is Chueh’s map of his Inferno.
You can check out the full series of artwork and more of Chueh’s work on his website.
Carolina Crown Drum and Bugle Corps is a World Class competitive junior drum and bugle corps.
“Never has Hell been so captivating and entertaining. ‘Inferno’ took us deep into the world of Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s nine circles of Hell, the circles seen starting near the feet of the corps’ uniform, wrapping up the leg, continuing on the hat, and ending in the feather that points upward to Heaven. Images printed on the color guard’s flags were copies of original Divine Comedy illustrations by French artist Gustave Doré. It was a helluva good time for all, sinful in its rapturous delight.”
The Carolina Crown Corps made it to 2nd place in the Drum Corps International 2015 Finals.
Watch the Corps’s preview show below:
Watch a snippet of the Corps’s final show below:
Abandon All Hope is a metal band out of Adelaide, Australia that was formed in 2005. The band had 5 members – Micah Leinonen as vocals, Jarrod Kennett on bass guitar, Chris Whitbread on drums, and Jake Battista and Shaan Kelly on guitars. The Metal Archives list the band’s lyrical themes as “Hate, Anger, Life, [and] Relationships.” The band split up in 2013.
Their discography consisted of 3 albums – Where Life and Death Meet (2007), A Havoc Command (2010), and Prowler (2011).
“Abandon All Hope” is the first song on hip-hop musician Aesop Rock’s premier album, Music for Earthworms (1997).
Aesop Rock’s albums can be streamed on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Bandcamp, and Twitch.
“This is such a daring and visionary album, a contemporary masterpiece of composition. Multilayered, rich and colourful. Dark and radiant at the same time, thrilling and mesmerizing.” [. . .] — Erkka Lehmus, Bandcamp, 2016
Abandon All Hope is an album by guitarist and composer Gretchen Menn released on December 12, 2016. Learn more about this artist on her website.
The track list below includes links to the songs on Bandcamp:
