Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

Mommy’s Inferno, from Scary Mommy

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“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.

GAU Dante, 2021

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Dante-Inferno-30-31-Street-Art-by-Korvo-for-GAU“GAU-Gallerie d’arte Urbana è un progetto che ha come obiettivo quello di importare un modello di risanamento urbano che riesca, a ispirare bellezza e funzionalità, attraverso la street art, applicata ad un oggetto di uso quotidiano come le campane della raccolta differenziata del vetro. Il progetto ha come obiettivo principale quello di creare un galleria d’arte urbana gratuita, fruibile in ogni momento dal cittadino, per ribadire il concetto dell’arte come bene comune, incentivando l’attenzione sulle tematiche di differenziazione dei rifiuti.

“Per la sua quinta edizione, GAU sceglie di omaggiare Dante Alighieri nel settimo centenario della sua morte. Gli artisti lavoreranno sui 34 canti dell’Inferno, attualizzandoli attraverso la peculiarità del proprio linguaggio artistico, reinterpretando simboli, luoghi e personaggi della Divina Commedia in chiave contemporanea.

“Moby Dick – Giusy Guerriero – Dez – Marta Quercioli – Zara Kiafar – Tito – Violetta Carpino – Kiddo – DesX – Yest – Er Pinto – Olives – Lola Poleggi – Kenji – BloodPurple – Orgh – Lady Nina – Teddy Killer – Valerio Paolucci – Wuarky – Karma Factory  – Muges147 – Maudit – Hoek – Alessandra Carloni – Cipstrega – Molecole – Korvo – Alekos Reize – Gojo.”   —Gallerie d’Arte Urbana

See a gallery of all 34 decorated recycling bins, one for each canto of the Inferno, on the GAU website. You can also download the magazine on the site, which includes a map where visitors to Rome can locate each bin.

The image above features Korvo’s design for cantos 30-31. Photo credit Valentino Bonacquisti.

Jems Robert Koko Bi, Convoi Royal (2009)

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“Dante’s journey paints a fine portrait of the world I was living in when Convoi Royal was created. This time, the world is a lot like reality. A world running a merciless race, steered by wild beasts devouring everything in their way. The huge hooves hammer the ground, chipping it away to form an infernal whirlpool. The earth trembles with each thud, tilts, and is thrown off balance. A terrible panic strikes its inhabitants. They raise their arms to shield their heads, run around in a crazed fray, seeking temporary shelter. In the beginning, these wild animals were normal beings whose duty was to ensure a better future for the world, but their stomachs were too empty and their prey too easy for this duty to be respected. They decided to satisfy their ego instead, rather than work for the well-being of their numerous fellow beings who were famished and dying. The unknown paradise started its royal convoy. Backed up against the wall, I resign myself to a constraint, deadly as it may be: to leave.” –Jems Robert Koko Bi

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

For more information on the Ivorian artist, see Wikipedia. For more information on Convoi Royal, visit the link here.

Kader Attia, Dispossesion (2013)

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“Soul—the term occurs often, meant in a rigorously philosophical sense as a ‘vital principle’ or ‘bodily entelechy.’ Just like all the medieval masters, Dante sees in man a being made up of both body and soul. As regards the relationship between the two components, Dante sticks to the Aristotolean solutions, adopted unanimously by the theologians of the day. Hence, the soul may be conceived and represented as separate from the body, in its definitive condition of a dweller in the kingdoms of the afterlife. In this sense, the term is used countless times to refer to the shadows of the dead in their concrete individuality: ‘O spirit courteous of Mantua’ (Inferno, Canto II, 58); ‘But all those souls who weary were and naked,/Their colour changed’ (Inferno, Canto III, 100).”

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

For more on the French-Algerian artist Kader Attia, see Wikipedia.

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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