Circles of Hell Archives - Page 3 of 57

Seinfeld Season 3, Episode 10 – “The Stranded” (1991)

November 24, 2021 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

“Seinfeld is an American sitcom television series created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. It aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, over nine seasons and 180 episodes. It stars Seinfeld as a fictionalized version of himself and focuses on his personal life with three of his friends: George Costanza (Jason Alexander), former girlfriend Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and his neighbor from across the hall, Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards). It is set mostly in an apartment building in Manhattan’s Upper West Side in New York City. It has been described as ‘a show about nothing’, often focusing on the minutiae of daily life.” —Wikipedia

In Season 3, Episode 10, entitled “The Stranded”, George remarks that his current office relationship makes it feel as though every day is a date to which Jerry replies, “That’s one of Dante’s nine stages of Hell, isn’t it?”

See our other post involving comedian Jerry Seinfeld here.

Metal Songs Inspired by Dante

November 18, 2021 By Hannah Raisner, FSU '25

“Many metal musicians have incorporated Dante’s nine circle’ template and epic storytelling style into their own music. This list examines some of the best songs that pay homage to one of the greatest poems of all time, ‘Dante’s Inferno.'” –Katy Irizarry, Loudwire, August 15, 2018

The Loudwire piece lists 11 metal songs inspired by Dante, including “Medusa” by Anthrax, “Lion Heart” by Blind Guardian, and “Demon’s Gate” by Candlemass.

Read the article here.

Corelli’s Mandolin Novel, Louis de Bernieres (1994)

November 10, 2021 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

On page 23 of the 1994 novel Corelli’s Mandolin, a gay Italian soldier fighting in WWII contemplates the treatment of homosexuals in Dante’s depictions of Hell. De Bernieres makes specific reference to the Seventh Circle of Hell and the punishment of the sodomites (as well as the usurers). The author also incorporates a quote from Canto XVI of Dorothy Sayer’s 1950 translation of Dante’s Inferno: “It makes me heartsick only to think of them.”

Macrodosing Podcast’s “Hell” Episode

November 5, 2021 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

The “Hell” episode of the podcast Macrodosing features Dante’s Inferno, hypothesizing which circles of Hell contemporary figures would find themselves in. Contributor Jack Switzer notes, “The podcast episode featured lengthy discussion of Dante’s Inferno and the structure of the Dante’s version of Hell, and the impact that the Inferno had on current views of Hell. The podcast’s hosts also placed contemporary figures in the respective circles of Hell. For the discussion, the hosts first briefly described each circle and then assigned modern day celebrities. Some notable celebrity examples included Jeff Bezos for the sin of avarice and Napoleon in the eighth circle of seducers and panderers.”

“When he wrote that, I don’t think he knew that eight-hundred years from now, that would be people’s idea of what Hell was, That’s what the majority of people in this country, they don’t get it from cartoons or pop culture, but even those derive themselves from what Dante wrote about Hell, just kinda like, yeah he was a scholar, but he was also just a hundred percent speculating on what Hell looked like. The one thing that I respect the hell out of Dante for doing is in the Inferno—he just put his enemies and his contemporaries that he thought were trash poets compared to him—he just put them in Hell. He was like, ‘I’m gonna write a book about hell just so I can roast my biggest enemies and I love the pettiness.” [. . .] –PFT Commenter, Macrodosing, April 6, 2021

Watch or listen to the podcast episode here. Discussion of Dante’s Inferno begins at the timestamp, 1:10:09.

Contributed by Jack Switzer (University of Arkansas ’22)

Junji Ito’s Horror Manga Uzumaki (1998-1999)

October 31, 2021 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

“Uzumaki is the story of Kirie Goshima, a young girl living in a coastal town that is slowly falling into the grip of a ‘spiral curse.’ The townsfolk, to varying degrees, become obsessed and subsequently infected by spirals.

“Ito-san’s spirals operate with similar symbolic significance to the circles of hell, namely, they are partly allegorical, as well as literal, of the spirals and endless cycles of human behavior…as in Dante’s hell all things become literal, he is physically twisted to reflect his psychological reality. Each person in Uzumaki is trapped in their own sin.

“Junji Ito understands, as Dante did, that even positive emotions like love have a place in hell when they are taken to extremes. Like a spiral itself, the story circles whilst drawing ever closer to a central point…like Dante, Junji Ito doesn’t flinch from showing us the full expanse and architecture of the hell he has created, and we see the very “nadir” or low-point of the spiral, and what that represents.” [. . .] –Joseph Sale, The English Cantos, April 8, 2020 (retrieved October 27, 2021)

How to Cite