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Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

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Garane Garane, Il Latte è Buono (2005)

February 28, 2022 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

garane-garane-author-of-il-latte-e-buono

“Ho studiato nelle scuole della lingua di Dante…Grazie Dea Italia! Sarò finalmente lontano da questi somari, da questi brutti ceffi, selvaggi, che adorano i cammelli…”      –Garane Garane, Il Latte è Buono, 2005

“Gashan’s (the protagonist’s) identification with Dante is central in the novel, which can be seen as an inverted journey from the Heaven of the uncritical enjoyment of Italian culture in Somalia to the Hell of European and American discrimination and Somali Civil War. Garane’s Il Latte è Buono can be defined as a Bildungsroman since the character becomes increasingly aware of the psychological influence of Italian colonialism on his education when he reaches and lives in Italy. To some extent, Dante’s role within his Bildung is once again to serve as a meta-literary guide for the main character, recalling Virgil’s role as Dante’s mentor in the Commedia.”    –Simone Brioni, Lorenzo Mari, Postcolonial Dante: Reading the Commedia in Mogadishu, 2019

Access Il Latte è Buono by Garane Garane here.

Contributed by Simone Brioni (Ph.D., Stony Brook University)

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: 2005, 2019, Africa, America, Books, Civil War, Colonialism, Education, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Italy, Journeys, Literature, Novels, Somalia, Travel, Virgil

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

Escape from Paradise “Found” Letter From Dante’s Beatrice to Petrarch’s Laura, Sante Matteo (2021)

November 10, 2021 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

escape-from-paradise-found-letter-screenshot

This “found” letter drafted by Sante Matteo recounts the story of Beatrice Portinari’s faked death in Florence and reestablishment as a different woman in Venice. The letter acts as Beatrice’s advice to Petrarch’s muse Laura on “how to deal with the consequences of being made the object of love poetry” (Contributor Sante Matteo). Throughout the text, various references are made to Dante, the Divine Comedy, and other poetic and literary works written by Dante.

The following is an excerpt from the letter explaining Beatrice’s identity:

“Before escaping from Florence, I was Beatrice Portinari. Yes, the Beatrice made famous by Dante Alighieri.  I’m told that his poetry is well known in Avignon because of the community of Florentine expatriates who live there. . . If you do know the Commedia, you will know me as Dante’s guide from Purgatorio through Paradiso.” [. . .]    –Sante Matteo, Twelve Winters Journal

For the full content of the letter, visit Twelve Winters journal here.

Contributed by Sante Matteo

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: 2021, Beatrice, Dante, Fiction, Letters, Narrative, Petrarch

Requiem of the Crazies Comics (2018)

October 23, 2021 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

requiem-of-the-crazies-cover

“A young troubled man who finds himself living on the streets with a gun in his mouth and nowhere to go is given hope for a new life when he is taken in by a streetwise bum named Vern. Dante is introduced to the underground world of the homeless, the Crazies, where a bum can stay for the month of May and won’t need any money. A sanctuary for all those who have been forsaken. . . If only it were that easy. When corrupt politicians, drug dealers and an insane cult leader begin fighting for power, the meek homeless become nothing more than pawns in a malicious game of power. “I thought being homeless would be really easy,” Dante thinks, as him and Vern set off on their journey to fight the evil forces bent on corrupting the minds of the homeless. ” [. . .]    –Rusty Cage, Indiegogo (retrieved October 18, 2021)

The series was started by Rusty Cage in 2018 and is currently on the third of eight planned installments.

Categories: Visual Art & Architecture, Written Word
Tagged with: 2018, American Politics, Comics, Dante, Drugs, Fiction, Florida, Gainesville, Graphic Novels, Homelessness, Politics, United States, Visual Art

La Comedia Nova di Andrea Chiarelli (2021)

October 17, 2021 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

la-comedia-nova-andrea-chiarelli-cover“La Comedia Nova è il racconto in versi del ritorno di Dante nell’aldilà e la scoperta di un mondo nuovo e nuovi personaggi. Dante viene riportato nel loco etterno sotto la guida illuminata di Voltaire, che lo presenta a personaggi che sono vissuti dopo la vita mortale di Dante: da Cristoforo Colombo a Neil Armstrong, da Leonardo a Christiaan Barnard, da Galileo a Margherita Hack.

“Dante scopre che l’aldilà non è più organizzato nei tre tradizionali regni: Inferno, Purgatorio e Paradiso. Ora vige tutta un’altra organizzazione ed un altro modo di intendere premi e punizioni.

“La Comedia Nova è scritta seguendo lo stesso stile della Divina Commedia. È un poema di dodici canti scritto in terzine dantesche (terzine incatenate di endecasillabi), con un linguaggio che si ispira a quello di Dante, ma non troppo.”    —La Comedia Nova

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: 2021, Christopher Columbus, Fiction, Galileo, Italian, Italy, Leonardo da Vinci, Neil Armstrong, Poems, Terza Rima, Voltaire

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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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