Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture
“Abandon hope all ye who enter here.”
Theme Park World, Bullfrog Productions’ 1999 construction and management simulation game. Upon selecting Halloween World, the Adviser references the inscription upon the gates of hell.
Learn more from Theme Park World‘s Wikipedia page here.
“Hell on Earth: A concept that has fascinated many for millennia, an attempt to place divine punishment on the same plane of existence humans live in. [. . .] Religions across the world speak of portals that connect the living with the dead and the terrible creatures that guard this fiery pit. Where are these gates to Hell?
[. . .]
“Along the road of Lake Averno in Italy, we find one of the oldest roads that lead to the underworld. Over two thousand years ago, Grotto della Sibilla was once a Roman military tunnel connecting Lake Averno to Lake Lucrino. Here, Aeneas with Sibyl at his side embarked on a journey into Hades.“ —Eduardo Limón, Cultura Colectiva, August 2, 2016
Photo by Kealan Shilling
“Rumour has it, this entrance leads to seven layers of interconnecting tunnels (the seven layers of hell) and that somewhere within them, is a room where you come face to face with Lucifer himself.
“The ‘Gates of Hell,’ is a series of water runoffs and underground tunnels located in Clifton, about an hour outside of downtown Manhattan.
“We passed several dry, smaller openings and eventually we came to a larger room with three tunnels, one of which smells a bit and is marked comedically, ‘…not the gate to hell…'” — Kealan Shilling, Monster Children, May 25, 2016
“The standoff at El Rodeo has drawn attention to the conditions of Venezuela’s prisons, which Hugo Chávez, the president, has famously called “the gateway to the fifth circle of hell.” When he was inaugurated in 1999—five years after the end of his own jail stint for leading an attempted coup—22,000 inmates were crammed into prisons built for 17,000. Mr Chávez promised a “humanisation” programme.” [. . .] —The Economist, July 14, 2011
“In 1982, Marvel Comics incorporated Dante Alighieri into their superhero universe in Ka-Zar the Savage Issues #9-12. Apparently, Dante based the Inferno on a pre-historic, Atlantean amusement park, one where cultists killed Beatrice in order to summon inter-dimensional demons. Dante managed to defeat the cultists with his prayers, but they return to power seven centuries later to attempt to summon their demon-lords again. That leaves it up to Ka-zar the Savage to climb down an animatronic Hell to finish what Dante started.” –Paul Jenizm
(Contributed by Paul Jenizm)
“Gates of Hell” is an album released on July 31, 2014 by Sam Coffey and the Iron Lungs. The band hails from Toronto, Canada, and are a self-described “6 piece rock n’ roll band from hell.” — cited from Bandcamp.com
The album features 10 songs:
Watch the music video for the song “Gates of Hell” below:
Learn more about Sam Coffey and the Iron Lungs on their website, and follow them on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Soundcloud.
“There are places on Earth that are a little creepy, places that feel a little haunted and places that are downright hellish. The Darvaza gas crater, nicknamed by locals ‘The Door to Hell,’ or “The Gates of Hell,” definitely falls into the latter category—and its sinister burning flames are just the half of it. Located in the Karakum Desert of central Turkmenistan (a little over 150 miles from the country’s capital) the pit attracts hundreds of tourists each year. It also attracts nearby desert wildlife—reportedly, from time to time local spiders are seen plunging into the pit by the thousands, lured to their deaths by the glowing flames.” — Natasha Geiling, Smithsonian.com (May 20, 2014)
Posted on Facebook by Student Problems (December 5, 2017)
Contributed by Shaimaa Khanam (Florida State University, 2019)
In June 2017, Septicflesh released a video for the opening track of their new orchestral death metal album Codex Omega (Prosthetic Records, Sept. 2017): “Dante’s Inferno.” Of the song, Guitarist Sotiris V. says, “We are proud to present the first track from the upcoming album, Codex Omega. The song is appropriately entitled ‘Dante’s Inferno,’ acting as a gateway to hell… as it was inscribed on the top of the Hellgate in the famous poem by Dante Alighieri, ‘Through me you pass into the city of woe; Through me you pass into eternal pain; Through me among the people lost for aye.’ This is just the first glimpse – the entrance to our new album. Stay tuned as more will gradually be revealed with the release date of our new album getting closer…” (cited on metalunderground.com).
The track was one of the “Picks of the Week” on the blog Metal Sucks. Guest blogger Garren L. has this to say: “Septicflesh have once again demonstrated why they are the masters of symphonic death metal. I might go as far as to make the audacious claim that their new track ‘Dante’s Inferno’ has given Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy an extra layer of sinisterness. By mixing the brutality of death metal with the orchestral elements normally found as part of a film score, Septicflesh are able to portray the horrific, evil, and grotesque nature of what Dante described in his work.” — metalsucks.net
The video is available here.
Contributed by Paul Ickert (George Mason University ’19)
