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Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

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Seinfeld Season 3, Episode 10 – “The Stranded” (1991)

November 24, 2021 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

seinfeld-dante-reference-screenshot

“Seinfeld is an American sitcom television series created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. It aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, over nine seasons and 180 episodes. It stars Seinfeld as a fictionalized version of himself and focuses on his personal life with three of his friends: George Costanza (Jason Alexander), former girlfriend Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and his neighbor from across the hall, Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards). It is set mostly in an apartment building in Manhattan’s Upper West Side in New York City. It has been described as ‘a show about nothing’, often focusing on the minutiae of daily life.”     —Wikipedia

In Season 3, Episode 10, entitled “The Stranded”, George remarks that his current office relationship makes it feel as though every day is a date to which Jerry replies, “That’s one of Dante’s nine stages of Hell, isn’t it?”

See our other post involving comedian Jerry Seinfeld here.

Categories: Digital Media, Performing Arts
Tagged with: 1991, 90s, American Television, Circles of Hell, Comedy, Hell, Inferno, Jokes, Sitcoms, Television, United States

Larry David, Curb Your Enthusiasm (2021)

November 24, 2021 By Professor Arielle Saiber


“In the opening scene of Episode 5 of Season 11 of the television show Curb Your Enthusiasm, titled “IRASSHAIMASE!”, Larry David and his friend Freddy Funkhouser argue about whether Freddy talked through Larry’s putt in their game of golf earlier in the day. Larry asks his friend Jeff Greene to weigh in, but he refuses to take a side. In response, Larry says, ‘Jeff, you know what Dante said: The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in time of crisis retain their neutrality.’ He then jokes with Jeff, saying, ‘You’re goin’ straight to hell’ in reference to Jeff’s neutrality in Larry and Freddy’s argument about golf.

“Larry is referring to Canto III of Dante’s Inferno, in which Dante encounters cowardly and neutral souls who ‘lived without infamy and / without praise. / They are mixed with that cowardly chorus of / angels who were not rebels yet were not faithful to / God, but were for themselves. / The heavens reject them so as not to be less / beautiful, nor does deep Hell receive them, for the / wicked would have some glory from them’ (Canto III, lines 35–42, English
translation by Robert Durling, 1996).

“Larry’s citing of Dante is actually a common misattribution of his placement in Hell of neutral souls. Dante does indeed encounter souls who retained their neutrality in times of crisis in Canto III of Inferno, but places them not actually in Hell, but rather outside of its gates, doomed to never enter Hell nor Heaven. The contrapasso of these neutral souls’ punishment is that they are neutral in the afterlife, being neither damned nor saved, as they were neutral in their Earthly life; they are forced to nakedly follow a blank banner, representative of their neutrality, while being stung by insects. Dante asserts that they were never even really alive because of their neutrality, and thus are not worthy of being named. His misattribution of Dante’s placement of those who remain neutral in the ‘hottest places in hell’ further alludes to a speech given by Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 15, 1967, in which he stated ‘I am here because I agree with Dante, that: The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a period of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.’    –Cesca Craig

Contributed by Cesca Craig (University of Arkansas, ’23)

Categories: Performing Arts
Tagged with: 2021, Comedy, Hell, Hottest Places in Hell, Inferno, Neutrality, Television

Metal Songs Inspired by Dante

November 18, 2021 By Hannah Raisner, FSU '25

image-taken-from-loudwire-article

“Many metal musicians have incorporated Dante’s nine circle’ template and epic storytelling style into their own music. This list examines some of the best songs that pay homage to one of the greatest poems of all time, ‘Dante’s Inferno.'”    –Katy Irizarry, Loudwire, August 15, 2018

The Loudwire piece lists 11 metal songs inspired by Dante, including “Medusa” by Anthrax, “Lion Heart” by Blind Guardian, and “Demon’s Gate” by Candlemass.

Read the article here.

Categories: Music
Tagged with: Circles of Hell, Heavy Metal, Hell, Inferno, Journalism, Music, Nine circles

Customizable Dante Apparel

November 16, 2021 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

dantes-inferno-classic-t-shirt-redbubble

Customizable apparel companies like Redbubble, Zazzle, and teepublic feature countless Dante-related t-shirts and other items, like this “Dante’s Inferno Classic T-shirt“—featuring Botticelli’s portrait of the poet, along with the verse “Lasciate ogne speranza voi ch’intrate”—designed by user momulo-macheras on Redbubble.

Categories: Consumer Goods
Tagged with: Apparel, Clothing, Dante Portraits, Face of Dante, Fashion, Inferno, Lasciate ogne speranza

Limbo Dante Coloring Page

November 11, 2021 By Hannah Raisner, FSU '25

screenshot-of-coloring-sheet

The coloring page features references to Dante and is available on Etsy as a digital download.

It was created by Jaybob Doodles.

Purchase it here.

Categories: Consumer Goods, Visual Art & Architecture
Tagged with: 2021, Coloring books, Etsy, Inferno, Limbo

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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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