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Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

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Mommy’s Inferno, from Scary Mommy

May 12, 2022 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

scary-mommys-inferno

“In his poem Inferno, Dante travels through nine separate circles of human suffering on his journey towards spiritual salvation. Now I’m no major Italian poet, nor am I on a quest to save my soul, allegorically or spiritually. In fact, I haven’t even read Inferno, which is part of the epic poem the Divine Comedy, since the first time I trudged through (parts of) it in college, but I am a Mommy of three little kids. I have learned that motherhood is both divine and, often, a comedy….and yes, there is suffering. Hoo-boy is there suffering. I think, had Dante been a Mommy, his Nine Circles of Hell may have looked a bit different…but no less dreadful.

[. . .]

“Dante had to figuratively travel through hell and back before enjoying the peace that came at the end of his journey. I guess that’s the point of Mommy’s Inferno….that the inescapable moments of suffering we endure as mommies makes us stronger, better equipped to handle the challenges that come next, and more ready to enjoy the light of the good days that always follow the darkest nights of motherhood.

“So don’t ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter’ motherhood; for, though the hours and days of motherhood be long, the years are short…or so I hear.”   –Sarah Harris, “Mommy’s Inferno,” Scary Mommy (published May 21, 2010; updated December 2, 2020)

Read the nine circles of Scary Mommy’s Inferno here.

Categories: Digital Media, Written Word
Tagged with: 2010, 2020, Abandon All Hope, Blogs, Circles of Hell, Hell, Inferno, Moms, Motherhood, Parenting, Suffering

Ndary Lo, The Day After (2012)

April 21, 2022 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

star-shaped-configuration-of-people-with-arms-spread-out-black-on-white-background

“I see the world we are living in as both Hell and Purgatory. Our only hope in this life of ours, all that we have left is to try our best to be admitted to heaven someday. The Day After is an installation in which, after walking a long way through a dense and dark forest, one reaches that space where everything seems to be suspended, where one can feel this particular tension that we experience before embarking on a journey of which we don’t really know the name. The place is organized in a materialized circle and inhabited by iron characters which are ready to take off. The circle, in fact a spiral, symbolizes the energy of human beings, who find themselves in a new configuration, and they feel disoriented and experience a feeling of unreality.”

From The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists by Simon Njami.

Read more about Senegalese sculptor Ndary Lô, see Wikipedia.fr.

Categories: Visual Art & Architecture
Tagged with: Africa, Art, Art Books, Circles, Dark Wood, Energy, Heaven, Hell, Installation Art, Iron, Journeys, Metal, Purgatory, Sculptures, Senegal

Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human (1948)

April 16, 2022 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

osamu-dazai-grayscale-pensive-author-portraitno-longer-human-bookcover

“…The front door of another person’s house terrified me more than the gate of Inferno in the Divine Comedy, and I am not exaggerating when I say that I really felt I could detect within the door the presence of a horrible dragon-like monster writhing there with a dank, raw, smell…” –Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human, 1948

Contributed by Camila Aguilar (University of Texas at Austin, ’25)

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: 1948, Books, Gates of Hell, Hell, Inferno, Japan, Journeys, Literature, Monsters, Novels

Depths of Dante Novel, Kevin Cady (2021)

March 27, 2022 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

kevin_cady_author_headshot“In his new book, Depths of Dante, Colorado Springs author Kevin Cady invites readers to explore one man’s journey into the darkest regions of the human condition.

“The book follows Dante Trakas on his journey to an unimaginable world. What begins as a search for a lost ship, the Cursed Nomad, turns into a down-the-rabbit-hole adventure where Dante explores not only the furthest reaches of himself but of humankind.

“Trakas descends into the world of eternal punishment, where he explores the furthest reaches of himself, pushed by the devil’s deceitful questions. While in hell, Trakas encounters a wall of bodies, grotesque-looking beasts that defy imagination and psychological warfare on the journey to the devil’s castle.” [. . .]    –William Dagendesh, North Springs Edition, October 19, 2021 (retrieved March 27, 2022)

Depths of Dante was originally published on October 13, 2021.

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: 2021, Books, Colorado, Colorado Springs, exploration, Hell, Journeys, Literature, Novels, Punishment, The Devil

700 year old fresco depicts Dante sent to burn in Hell

February 17, 2022 By Hannah Raisner, FSU '25

fresco-of-dante-and-virgil

“Scholars believe they have found a portrayal of Dante being sent to burn in the fires of damnation, hidden in the corner of a 700-year-old fresco in Tuscany.

They say the figure of a man with an aquiline nose and a distinctive red beret bears a striking resemblance to known portraits of Dante, who is revered in Italy as much as Shakespeare is esteemed in Britain.

The demonisation of the poet may have been motivated by the bad relations he had with the Church.

The fresco was painted between 1336 and 1342 by an artist named Bonamico Buffalmacco and adorns a wall of the Camposanto, a historic cemetery in Pisa which is close to the famous Leaning Tower.”    — Nick Squires, The Telegraph, February 1, 2022.

Read the full article here.

Categories: Places, Visual Art & Architecture, Written Word
Tagged with: Art History, Dante in Hell, Frescos, Hell, Italy, The Telegraph, Tuscany

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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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