Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

  • Submit a Citing
  • Map
  • Links
  • Bibliography
  • User’s Guide
  • Teaching Resources
  • About

NY Times Review: Dante’s Inferno Play, adapted/directed by Robert Scalan (1998)

October 16, 2021 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

dantes-inferno-play-review-ny-times“Dante’s Inferno, a highly condensed and remarkably theatrical staged version of the 14th-century epic that takes Dante, played here by Bill Camp and guided by the poet Virgil (Reg E. Cathey), on a fantastic voyage into Hades. Mr. Willis and Leslie Beatty complete the cast, portraying an assortment of damned souls in this economical, two-hour production. And these two — how shall we put it? — have all the fun.

“Like more tormented versions of the sad sacks Dorothy collects on the yellow brick road, they confide their tales of woe to the visitor from another world. Mr. Willis and Ms. Beatty cringe and shudder, shrink and quake, affixing faces worthy of compassion to the teeming multitudes of the Underworld. As the acting opportunities pile up, the surprise of this Inferno becomes clear: even if it is not quite a fully realized verse play, it is much more than a staged reading.

“Mr. Scanlan and his designers, John Michael Deegan and Sarah G. Conly, transfer Dante’s hell to the late 20th century. Dressed in business clothes, the actors traverse a mirrored multilevel set that vaguely resembles one of those nondescript office buildings along the interstate (which are some esthetes’ idea of hell, anyway). As the story unfolds, so does the scenery, which is divided into compartments reached by ladders and stairs that denote the descending circles of hell.
“Dante’s Inferno reflects the poem’s episodic nature. It’s how skillfully Mr. Scanlan and his collaborators operate within the episodes that makes this an intriguing evening. Mr. Willis is especially rewarding in his myriad character roles, and on both the technical and interpretive level, all four actors speak with a grasp of the work’s power and lyricism. This is a piece that gets better the lower it goes.” [. . .]     –Peter Marks, New York Times, September 28, 1998 (retrieved November 26, 2021)

Categories: Performing Arts, Written Word
Tagged with: Adaptations, American Theatre, New York, New York City, Newspapers, Off-Broadway, Performing Arts, Plays, Reviews, Theatre, United States

Daniel Berrigan, The Discipline of the Mountain: Dante’s Purgatorio in a Nuclear World (1979)

February 24, 2021 By Jasmine George, FSU '24

“In The Discipline of the Mountain Daniel Berrigan offers ‘ways of imagining our plight’ through the poetic vision of Dante’s Purgatorio. There can be found ‘a faithful vision, an alternative, a truthful image of God, of ourselves, of history.’ Berrigan employs free, poetic adaptation of the original–its themes, moods, discourses, encounters–with a prose commentary relating the text to political-moral issues of the present day. With its themes of lust and hatred, religious strife and ecclesiastical corruption, military power and oppression, the Purgatorio is an apt allegory of modern society. Thirteenth-century kings and princes shade into twentieth-century colonels and shahs and juntas.”   —Description from Wipf and Stock Publishers

In a review published in the magazine Sojourners, Lionel Basney writes, “Berrigan writes that he went to the Purgatorio in search of “ways of imagining our plight.” Looking for new vision in an old work is a familiar activity; but when it means reforging that work to make a new vision, it becomes complicated for both writer and reader. Unlike translation, an ‘imitation’ does not replace the original text. Instead it offers a new work through which the old text is still visible; to read it is to read two texts. Its author writes in the confidence, or hope, that the vision of the older text is still valid, assuming that for his readers as for himself the vision’s fundamental values remain true and compelling.

“But are we close enough to Dante to make this complicated process work? That depends on what we need from him. Berrigan needs terms in which to grasp the barrenness and violence of a way of life that constantly threatens war. Wanting Christian terms for this, terms powerful to Christian consciences, he naturally turns to Dante as the great poet of the Christian vision. And certainly Dante’s world was no less violent than ours.”   –Lionel Basney, “Berrigan’s Reawakening of Vision” (Review), Sojourners, August 1980

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: 1979, Adaptations, Author, Authors, Books, Christianity, Corruption, Illustrated Books, Nuclear War, Politics, Purgatorio, Spirituality

Richard Kostelanetz, Kosti’s Divine Comedies (2016)

May 28, 2020 By Professor Arielle Saiber

Kosti’s Divine Comedy redoes the Dante text with chapter titles from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s translations and RK’s ghost poems.

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: 2016, Adaptations, Longfellow, Poetry

“Westworld” Just Created A New Version Of Dante’s Inferno

July 18, 2019 By Gabriel Siwady '19

“HBO’s series Westworld draws inspiration from any number of different sources. Just this season (season 2), Episode 3 entitled ‘Virtù e Fortuna’ drew from the famous early Italian political theorist, Machiavelli, while the following Episode 4 entitled ‘Riddle of the Sphinx’ was heavy with references to the ancient Greek myth of Oedipus, the most recent episode that aired last this past Sunday, ‘Les Écorchés’ seems to be drawing from the famous 14th-century Italian poem by Dante Alighieri, the Inferno.” […]    –Matthew Gabriele, Forbes, June 4, 2018

Read more about Dante-inspired concepts and titles in Westworld  here and here.

Categories: Performing Arts
Tagged with: 2018, Adaptations, HBO, Hell, Inferno, Science Fiction, Television

Tenth Circle (2008), Lifetime movie based on Jodi Picoult’s novel

July 8, 2019 By Gabriel Siwady '19

 

“Set in a small village in Maine, Circle features teen orgies, adultery, boy toys, date rape drugs, self-inflicted maiming and a suicide that might be murder.

“All this plays out against the unsubtle backdrop of high school teacher Laura Stone (Kelly Preston) teaching a course in Dante, whose Divine Comedy never foreshadows anything too pleasant.

“In fact, the title of the best-selling Jodi Picoult novel from which the film was adapted suggests Dante didn’t go far enough for the modern world – that where Dante created only nine circles of eternal purgatory, these days we need a 10th.

“Seems that since Dante outlined Hell in the early 14th century, we’ve somehow stepped up our game and developed another level of wickedness.” […]    –David Hinckley, NY Daily News, June 27, 2008

Categories: Performing Arts, Visual Art & Architecture
Tagged with: 2008, Adaptations, Circles of Hell, Films, Hell, Inferno, Maine, Tenth Circle

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Next Page »

Categories

  • Consumer Goods (194)
  • Digital Media (126)
  • Dining & Leisure (107)
  • Music (190)
  • Odds & Ends (91)
  • Performing Arts (361)
  • Places (132)
  • Visual Art & Architecture (416)
  • Written Word (845)

Random Post

  • Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (2007)

Frequent Tags

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 700th anniversary Abandon All Hope America American Politics Art Artists Beatrice Blogs Books California Circles of Hell Comics Dark Wood Divine Comedy England Fiction Films Florence France Games Gates of Hell Hell History Humor Illustrations Inferno Internet Italian Italy Journalism Journeys Literary Criticism Literature Love Music New York City Non-Fiction Novels Paintings Paolo and Francesca Paradise Paradiso Performance Art Poetry Politics Purgatorio Purgatory Religion Restaurants Reviews Rock Science Fiction Sculptures Social Media Technology Television Tenth Circle Theater Translations United Kingdom United States Universities Video Games Virgil

ALL TAGS »

Image Mosaic

How to Cite

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

Creative

 





© 2006-2023 Dante Today
research.bowdoin.edu