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Justin Meckes, Inferno (2020)

October 22, 2020 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

“Inferno is a novella, a portion of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, in prose rather than the original verse. Inferno finds our protagonist enduring the very same tormenting journey through the rings of hell but in an expanded format.

“The work is retold in its original period, but it has been infused with somewhat less overt references to today’s politics. Thus, this Inferno will maintain a universal appeal and be made available in a Russian Flag edition.

“[. . .] Within this version, multiple Trump associates (e.g., Paul Manafort, Stephen Miller, Jared Kushner, etc.) make appearances in the place of their Florentine counterparts.”

Read a short excerpt here.

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: 2020, America, American Politics, Circles of Hell, Donald Trump, Fiction, Hell, Inferno, Literature, Novels, Presidents

Frank Bruni, “From Trump, No Respect for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, or the Rules”

September 20, 2020 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

Photo by Gage Skidmore (Wikimedia Commons)

“‘The only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged,’ Trump told supporters at a rally in Wisconsin last month. He has repeatedly made versions of that claim, at one point exhorting North Carolinians to monitor polling sites and ‘watch all the thieving and stealing and robbing’ by Democrats, who will work to lift Biden to victory by ‘doing very bad things.’

“And it’s a perfect example of Trump’s tendency to assign his own motives and methods to others. He worries that they’ll cheat because he has always cheated — on his taxes, on his wives, in his business dealings, in his philanthropy. He imagines them cheating because he actually is cheating.

[. . .]

“But Trump’s cheating is its own virus, infecting everyone around him. Trump’s cheating is its own ecosystem. Abandon all scruple, ye who enter here.”   — Frank Bruni, “From Trump, No Respect for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, or the Rules,” New York Times (September 19, 2020)

Contributed by Dan Christian

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: 2020, Abandon All Hope, America, American Politics, Cheating, Donald Trump, Elections, Gates of Hell, Hell, Inferno, Journalism, News, Political Leaders, Politics, Trump

“Trump Shows off His Own Circle of Hell”

September 2, 2020 By lsanchez

“I’m the first guy to get a whole circle, it’s terrific. They evicted the Kennedys to put it in. Nobody, and I mean nobody else got this much abyss. Moody Judy Iscariot lives in a studio apartment in Satan’s mouth. Sad! Welcome to Mar-a-Lava.

Look at my pit. I have the deepest pit with the sharpest knives. These other guys, they have shallow fork holes, it’s pathetic. You should have seen how many demons came to my desecration. Packed like sardines. The noise was incredible. Biggest horde ever. They all wanted a piece of me. Good thing the pieces grew back. Very powerful agony!”    –Ella Gale, McSweeney’s, September 20, 2019

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: 2019, Circles of Hell, Donald Trump, Hell, Inferno, Judas Iscariot, Satan

“Dante Knows Where Trump Can Go”

August 28, 2020 By lsanchez

“I used to be a Dante scholar, so I’m accustomed to answering questions about the poet no one asked. Here’s one: Were he alive today, to which circle of hell would Dante consign President Donald Trump? Trump’s sins are many, so Dante would have options: there’s the second circle, which punishes the lustful, or the third, for bloated gluttons. Trump could also be at home in circle four (avarice and prodigality) and five (anger and acedia, or laziness). So much then for crimes of passion, or, in Dante’s Aristotelian framework, offenses that involve only the will. The penalties in those circles seem too lenient. So what about circles reserved for more cold-blooded transgressions, which require the intellect? Circles seven (violence), eight (simple fraud, including flattery, thievery, and barratry, or selling political office), and nine (treacherous fraud, reserved for the most serious felons, who betray relatives, country, guests, and benefactors) all seem viable. But sending Trump there is contingent on him demonstrating the conscious use of his intellect, which, of course, would be difficult. That leaves just circle six: heretics and atheists.”    –Griffin Oleynick, Commonweal, June 4, 2020

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: 2020, Circles of Hell, Donald Trump, Sins

Stephen Colbert on Trump and heresy

August 15, 2019 By Professor Arielle Saiber

Anderson Cooper: And the punishment for heretics is…?
Stephen Colbert: I think it’s red hot iron coffins in Dante’s Inferno.
(0:25 on)    –CNN, Politics of the Day Video, August 15, 2019

Contributed by Nicolino Applauso

Categories: Performing Arts
Tagged with: 2019, Comedy, Donald Trump, Hell, Heresy, Humor, Inferno, Politics

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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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