Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture
“Eagle-eyed viewers of Code Geass R2‘s first episode may have spotted that Lelouch is reading Dante’s Divina Commedia while Rollo gives him a lift. (As a child, I never loved anyone enough to give them my last Rolo.)
Slightly more obsessive viewers will have discovered that he is in fact reading the Purgatorio Canto XXII.” –Thaliarchus, Animanachronism, April 9, 2008
Learn more about Sunrise’s 2006 anime Code Geass here.
“In her second week at the library, she was choked. Somewhere in this building, she had been told, is an actual manuscript of the Divine Comedy. Dante Alighieri had not sat around in the 1300s writing coy shit. Somewhere near here, Arun Kolatkar had written Jejuri and the Kala Ghoda poems. Somewhere near here, Kolatkar had died. Where in her writing was the blood, the grime, the puking on the streets and the deep stuff?” –Nisha Susan, excerpt from The Women Who Forgot to Invent Facebook and Other Stories, Huffington Post, August 10, 2020
“Periodicals: The most frigid and judgmental part of the library. If you even think of talking or breathing above a whisper, you will be violently shushed (and maybe shanked).” –Caroline Brown, North by Northwestern, February 22, 2016
“Dante’s Inferno has always been so funny to me because its this really important classic that is constantly referenced, but at the same time it’s really just a burn book. Dante Alighieri is Regina George and he wrote an entire book about a bunch of people he hates and why he hates them. Dante took out his pink gel pen and wrote out in big cursive letters: Achilles is a slut.” —aphrodarling on tumblr (April 24, 2019)
Regina George is the antagonist of the 2004 film Mean Girls.
Contributed by Kate McKee (Bowdoin College ’22)
“In the minute-long spot, called ‘Password Paradise,’ a hooded mythological creature ferries a guy in a boat through swampy waters reminiscent of the River Styx in Dante’s Inferno. Ahead, there’s a bright, welcoming light and the sound of angelic voices. But to enter this paradise, the guy will need his password — which he’s naturally forgotten.
“The Charon-like creature prompts him to answer his security questions. No, it has be to the name of his first pet. You wanted to be a dolphin trainer when you grew up? Sorry, wrong answer dude!” [. . .] –Leslie Katz, CNET, January 31, 2020.
Contirbuted by Trey Turney (The Bolles School, ’22)
“Heavenly Legal had issued a Malfunction Recall and she was a fallen angel sent from below to ensure poor souls like mine found their way into the tenth circle of Hell in an orderly fashion. ‘I thought there were only nine circles down there,’ I objected. ‘We had to add one for all those who’ve lived their lives as if they were going to live forever.'” —Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Chipotle’s The Cultivating Thought Author Series
Photo courtesy of Crystal on Tumblr, who also provides a full transcript of Carlos’ story.
“Stop that dancing up there! Ya sillies.”
The Big Bad Wolf was particularly bad in this 1946 Looney Tunes clip.
See more about the short, titled Book Revue, here.
Nathan W. Pyle is an author and illustrator based in New York City. He is best known for his book NYC Basic Tips and Etiquette (2014), and his comic series Strange Planet.
You can check out more of Pyle’s work by following him on Instagram, Facebook, and by visiting his website. Additionally, Pyle is releasing a book of Strange Planet comics later this year, which you can check out on Amazon.
Contributed by Dariella Fonseca (Florida State University ’20).
David Szalay’s All That Man Is, published in 2017 by Vintage, tells the stories of nine different men at varying stages of life, and explores the issues and psych of the 21st century man. The book was a finalist for the 2016 Man Booker Prize, and the winner of the 2016 Paris Review Plimpton Prize for Fiction. The fourth story of the novel cites the first three lines of the Inferno, as the story’s protagonist, a medieval scholar in crisis, drives into a pine forest.
“Pine forests on hillsides start to envelop them on the east side of the Main. And fog.
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
Ché la diritta via era smarrita
“Well, here it is. Dark pine forests, hemming the motorway. Shapes of fog throw themselves at the windscreen.” [. . .] –David Szalay, All That Man Is (p. 146).
You can purchase Szalay’s book here.
