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Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

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The real scandal of Dante’s Beatrice Blog Article, Oxford University Press (2021)

April 10, 2022 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

martin_eisner_blog_article_screenshotIn honor of the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death, the Oxford University Press asked authors with Dante-related writings to submit articles to the OUPblog. The following was written by Duke University’s Associate Professor of Italian Studies, Martin Eisner:

“For over 700 years, Dante’s description of his first encounter with Beatrice has scandalized readers. Medieval commentators debate Dante’s possible blasphemy in glorifying a mortal woman. Counter-reformation editors censor it. Some modern interpreters see it as a theological or political allegory without biographical foundation, while others consider it an idealized modern reciprocal romance. In Dante’s New Life of the Book, I examine how these various responses from Giovanni Boccaccio to Orhan Pamuk bring into focus the novelty of Dante’s Beatrice, who creates a connection to the divine that includes not only Beatrice, but all humans. Beatrice embodies Dante’s optimistic sense of human potentiality that provides the philosophical ground for the rewards and punishments of the Divine Comedy.

“Beatrice is not the singular, exclusive child of God. She represents all humans, whose souls God breathes directly into them (Purgatory, canto 25) . . . Joining his love of a mortal woman with his love of God, Dante expands his vision to encompass other individuals as well. You may worry that Dante has put too much on the shoulders of an eight-year-old girl, but the real scandal of Dante’s Beatrice is that Dante thinks you can be Beatrice, too.” [. . .]    –Martin Eisner, OUPblog, September 9, 2021 (retrieved April 10, 2022)

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: 2021, 700th anniversary, Articles, Beatrice, Blogs, Dante Studies, Oxford

“San Valentino, cade un taboo: Dante e Beatrice si baciano”

April 8, 2022 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

dante_and_beatrice_kiss

“Dopo oltre 700 anni dalla nascita del loro amore, Dante e Beatrice cederanno alla tentazione e si lasceranno travolgere dalla passione facendo cadere tutti i taboo del dolce stilnovo. Un bacio, vero, per festeggiare tutti gli innamorati e promuovere la cultura. E per farlo hanno scelto il week end di San Valentino e due location d’eccezione: le grotte dell’Angelo di Pertosa (SA), le uniche in Europa a essere attraversate da un fiume navigabile, e la Certosa di San Lorenzo Padula (SA), complesso monastico tra i più grandi del vecchio continente, entrambe nominate patrimonio dell’Umanità dall’UNESCO, dove da anni vanno in scena i celebri spettacoli L’Inferno e Il Purgatorio di Dante.

“‘E’ un omaggio a tutti gli innamorati attraverso una coppia simbolo della letteratura italiana – dichiara Domenico Maria Corrado, regista e ideatore degli spettacoli –  Un’iniziativa per certi versi provocatoria, ma che in realtà vuole rendere più accattivante la cultura celebrando l’amore. Dai tempi di Dante ad oggi molte cose sono mutate e quindi anche la cultura deve sperimentare nuove strade.'” [. . .]    —Italia Chiama Italia.It, February 7, 2013 (retrieved April 8, 2022)

Categories: Performing Arts, Places
Tagged with: 2013, Beatrice, Dante, Inferno, Italy, Kiss, Love, Paradiso, Performances, Purgatorio, Valentine's Day

Sante Matteo, “Escape from Paradise,” Twelve Writers

January 9, 2022 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

“Before Beatrice fled from Florence to Venice and beyond in my story, she migrated from the classroom to the written page, then set sail and found a welcome dock at Twelve Winters Journal.

“A course I taught on the Divine Comedy drew students with a wide spectrum of academic interests. I encouraged them to undertake a term project related to their field of studies, as long as it included an account of their research and how their secondary sources contributed to the creation of their final product (a bit like this commentary). Art students handed in paintings and sculptures; music students composed, performed, and recorded musical pieces; writing majors wrote poetry and stories; theater majors wrote and staged plays; film students scripted, shot, and showed movies; philosophy majors wrote Platonic dialogues. My office became a museum of intriguing works of art.

“Beatrice often figured in the students’ projects, which gave me the idea for a piece that showed how things might have looked through her eyes. After I retired and began to dabble in ‘creative writing,’ I emulated my students and took on the project of drafting a story presented from her perspective. [. . .]” –Sante Matteo, “Commentary on ‘Escape from Paradise’,” Twelve Winters

Read Sante Matteo’s story “Escape from Paradise” at Twelve Winters‘ website here.

See also Sante Matteo’s poem “Assignation” (here) and his essay on Dante and baseball (here).

Contributed by Sante Matteo

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: 2021, Academia, Beatrice, Creative Writing, Fiction, Ohio, Oxford (Ohio), Paradise, Pedagogy, Short Stories, Student Projects, United States, Universities

Higher Self Yoga: Consciousness in the Divine Comedy

December 30, 2021 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

spiritual-painting-of-two-dante-characters-floating-in-front-of-large-yellow-circle-with-many-faces

“[. . .] As an example, consider this scene at the bottom of the mountain of Purgatory.  These souls have figured out how to get out of hell and have crossed the river to this mountainous island. The journey up the mountain (toward increasing freedom from destructive patterns and closer to higher consciousness) waits for them.

“What do they do?  They turn away from the mountain, hang out on the shoreline, and stare out at the water waiting for entertainers to arrive:  TV channel surfing, 14th Century style.  Fortunately, Dante himself is being guided to start to climb the mountain because there is much more waiting for him if he ascends. He does so, and at the very top he meets Beatrice, his Higher Self, who then guides him into higher states of consciousness in paradise.” [. . .]    –Dr. Richard Schaub Ph.D., Higher Self Yoga, July 8, 2020

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: Beatrice, Circles of Hell, Cosmos, Energy, Guides, Heaven, Journeys, Mountains, Neuroscience, Paradiso, Psychology, Self-Help, Spirituality, Suffering, Transformation, Wisdom, Yoga

Comics on display in honor of International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

November 24, 2021 By Professor Arielle Saiber


“Un nuovo evento: La Fumettoteca Regionale scende in campo per il ‘International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women’ con ‘Beatrice Donna Dantesca’ L’immancabile sensibilizzazione alla ‘Giornata Internazionale per l’Eliminazione della Violenza contro le Donne’ ma non per un solo giorno! e tanti altri passati e in arrivo…”

Contributed by GianLuca Umiliacchi

Categories: Visual Art & Architecture, Written Word
Tagged with: 2021, Beatrice, Comics, Italy, Violence Against Women, Women

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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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