Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

Ty Owens, “The 9 Circles of Modern Hell”

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“In the story Inferno from Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, there were nine circles of Hell – nine phases of Hell that Dante must pass through, each worse than the last. In the modern day, most people are not as afraid of ‘sinning’ as people were back in the day of Dante. This world has a great mix of faiths and degrees of lacking one. So, ‘sinning’ in the old way of describing actions isn’t really as relevant anymore. Therefore, I believe a renaming of the Nine Rings of Hell is in order so that people of the modern day can get more of a grasp on the terror that Dante was trying to get across with Inferno.

[. . .]

“3. Too Many Stops in Your MusicTy-Owens-Spinning-Wheel-of-Death-Buffering

Whether it be those few minutes where every radio station is on commercial or where the data is too slow to stream music, there are times when the music just isn’t playing. This is justifiably maddening because the only real reason this should happen is that ‘American Pie’ by Don McLean just came true and the music died. This circle of Hell is populated by radios that play only one line of a random song for every 24 hours of commercials or speakers that only play stints of skipping music between days of watching the ‘Loading’ or ‘Buffering’ icons pin.” — Ty Owens, “The 9 Circles of Modern Hell,” The Odyssey Online (July 18, 2016)

Contributed by Jessica Brewer (University of Kansas, 2019)

Waiting For Doom: Episode 107

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On Waiting For Doom, hosts Mike and Paul discuss “everyone’s favorite” superhero team, the Doom Patrol. In episode 107,”As In One of the Circles of Hell,” Mike and Paul talk about the Doom Patrol story that references the Inferno, “Tenth Circle” (Justice League of America 2004).

“We take our first nervous steps into an era we’ve never covered before…save for giving the entire run a brief recap back in Episode 7 (February 2015) because SOMEONE at the time refused to buy/read it…anyway, what was I saying? Oh. Yes. This week we take a look at the ‘Tenth Circle’ story from JLA (2004) issues 94 through 99, by John Byrne, Chris Claremont, Jerry Ordway, Tom Orzechowski and David Baron!” [. . .]    —Waiting For Doom, Podbean, October 5, 2017.

You can listen to this episode and more from Waiting For Doom on Podbean, and Apple Podcasts.

To keep up with all things Doom Patrol and see all the visuals from WFD’s episode, check out MyGreatestAdventure80 on Blogspot.

Octobriana and The Tenth Circle of Hell

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Octobriana is a public domain Russian super-heroine, who first appeared in a comic strip in 1971. In the new Octobriana book, titled Octobriana: The Exotic Time Domina, there is a comic spoof of Dante’s Inferno titled “The Tenth Circle of Hell.”

In his review for Kult Creations, John A. Short writes:

“Firstly we have reprints of Reima’s two rare, out-of-print Octo strips from the early nineties… ‘Mission in the North’ (with artist Petri Tolppanen) and ‘The Tenth Circle of Hell’ (with artist Timo Niemi.) It is ‘The Tenth Circle of Hell’ that is the backbone of this book, since it runs to 37 pages and is by far the longest strip in the collection. The story sees the Spirit of the October Revolution flying her time travelling Wonder Machine to Hell to take on everyone from Cerberus, Pluto (the God not the dog), Medusa, the Devil and her own evil sister (Decabriana!) This spoof of Dante’s Divine Comedy has some great humour and cracking action all in artist Niemi’s macabre woodcut-style.” [. . .]   –John A. Short, Kult Creations, October 9, 2015.

In addition to “Mission in the North” and “The Tenth Circle of Hell”, the new Octobriana book includes the comic strips “Origins”, “Wasted Time”, and “From Cuba with Love.”

This book was written and illustrated by Reima Mäkinen, Petri Tolppanen, Timo Niemi, Vesa Vitikainen and Sauli Jokinen.

You can pick up a copy of Octobriana: The Exotica Time Domina online at Turun Sarjakuvakauppa for 12,00 €.

Tenth Circle of Hell—Beer Fruiters

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“Yes, I know—Dante only discovered nine circles of Hell. That’s because the heathens at Amoretti had yet to practice their foul dark arts. What, you may ask, is their horrible crime? People have been befouling beer with innocent fruit for quite a while. That is, sadly, most true. And have no fear, the Tenth Circle has plenty of room for the likes of the miscreants at Corona and Blue Moon. Don’t be fooled, though, what Amoretti is doing takes the sin of fruiting the beer to whole new level—they want to industrialize it!

“Somehow—and this is a complaint I’ll certainly address—the keepers of the GABF allowed Amoretti to set up a booth of their vile wares to temp and seduce unwary beer drinkers. Right there—in the middle of the Meet the Brewer section, no less—20 some odd evil poisons threatened—what? Oh—fruit extracts. Did you hear that? Fruit extracts! The horror…” [. . .]    –Jonathan Berohn, Don’t Fruit The Beer, 2016-2018.

You can read the full post here, and you can check out more of Berohn’s writing here.

You can check out Amoretti’s products on their site.

Dante’s 10th Circle of Hell: Garbage Disposals

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“My ‘duh!’ advice to every garbage disposal owner? Keep small metal objects FAR FAR AWAY from your sink. And, of course, always double check your garbage disposal before running it.With a fine tooth comb and a magnifying glass. ALWAYS.

“It took Stephen over an hour to pry Abe loose using a flashlight and a variety of tools. He had to detach the garbage disposal from the sink because the penny was lodged standing up against the inner wall of the garbage disposal and was nearly impossible to reach.

“Once he finally got it out, he tossed the penny to me and said, ‘I think Dante forgot to include a tenth circle of Hell for people who drop tiny metal objects into garbage disposals.'” [. . .]    –Caroline Meyers, Ye Olde Sanwich Shoppe, May 2, 2011.

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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