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Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

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Junji Ito’s Horror Manga Uzumaki (1998-1999)

October 31, 2021 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

uzumaki-horror-manga-panel“Uzumaki is the story of Kirie Goshima, a young girl living in a coastal town that is slowly falling into the grip of a ‘spiral curse.’ The townsfolk, to varying degrees, become obsessed and subsequently infected by spirals.

“Ito-san’s spirals operate with similar symbolic significance to the circles of hell, namely, they are partly allegorical, as well as literal, of the spirals and endless cycles of human behavior…as in Dante’s hell all things become literal, he is physically twisted to reflect his psychological reality. Each person in Uzumaki is trapped in their own sin.

“Junji Ito understands, as Dante did, that even positive emotions like love have a place in hell when they are taken to extremes. Like a spiral itself, the story circles whilst drawing ever closer to a central point…like Dante, Junji Ito doesn’t flinch from showing us the full expanse and architecture of the hell he has created, and we see the very “nadir” or low-point of the spiral, and what that represents.” [. . .]    –Joseph Sale, The English Cantos, April 8, 2020 (retrieved October 27, 2021)

Categories: Visual Art & Architecture, Written Word
Tagged with: 1998, 1999, Circles of Hell, Comics, Emotions, Graphic Novels, Horror, Japan, Manga, Psychology, Spiral, Visual Art

«Noi leggiavamo. . .»: Visual re-mediations of Canto 5 in the journal Arabeschi

March 25, 2021 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

In honor of Dantedì (March 25) 2021, the journal Arabeschi published a special issue dedicated to the visual re-mediations of the figures of Paolo and Francesca in Inferno 5. With an introduction by Gaetano Lalomia and Giovanna Rizzarelli, and featuring essays and virtual exhibits by Marcello Ciccuto, Laura Pasquini, and others, the special issue covers in depth the rich history of iconographic reception, across various visual media, of the story of Dante’s star-crossed lovers in the 20th and 21st centuries. At right is a screenshot of selected contributions to the issue.

Read the full issue (with image gallery) here.

Read the introduction by Lalomia and Rizzarelli here.

Categories: Visual Art & Architecture, Written Word
Tagged with: 2021, 700th anniversary, Canto 5, Comics, Dantedì, Illustrations, Italy, Literary Criticism, Manga, Paintings, Paolo and Francesca

Cesare

October 15, 2020 By lsanchez

From Volume 2, Chapter 10, in Fuyumi Soryo’s 2005 manga series Cesare, which makes extensive reference to the Divine Comedy.

Learn more about Cesare here.

Categories: Visual Art & Architecture
Tagged with: 2005, Artists, Comics, Divine Comedy, Manga

Underworld – Saint Seiya

August 27, 2020 By lsanchez

“The Underworld (冥界, Meikai) or Inferno (地獄, Jigoku) is the realm of the dead where souls are placed after death. What area the souls reside in are determined by the Three Judges. It is the habitat of all Specters, including the god Hades (in classic myth, it is also the second residence of Hades’s wife, Persephone).

“The Meikai Underworld was created by Hades to forever punish humans for their crimes. No life is possible in the Underworld without the Eighth Sense (or special devices), as all things in the Underworld normally fall under the control of Hades. Specters are unaffected, and may enter and leave at the discretion of Hades because they wear Surplices.

“As depicted by Masami Kurumada, the Underworld is composed of eight prisons, with further subdivisions (the 7th prison is divided in three valleys, the 8th in ten pits, the 9th in four regions). All of the Prisons correspond to the nine Circles of Hell depicted in Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, which itself borrows heavily from Greek myths. In addition, it also contains the passage to the Elysian Fields, where only those chosen by the gods can go.”    —Seiyapedia, September 12, 2018

Learn more about the Saint Seiya series here.

Categories: Visual Art & Architecture
Tagged with: 1986, Circles of Hell, Comics, Divine Comedy, Hell, Inferno, Japan, Japanese, Manga

Refund High School (2018)

January 1, 2019 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

Refund-High-School-DanteThe fantasy webcomic Refund High School by South Korean artist LICO features an infernal spirit named Dante (see image). Here is the synopsis of the comic, provided on the site webtoons.com: “Do you want a refund on your life? Start earning karma at The Refund High School to reincarnate as an ideal version of yourself.”

Contributor Savannah Mikus notes, “The students take a field trip to hell, specifically in Chapter 53 they visit “Glutton’s Hell” where the spirits have an insatiable hunger.”

Contributed by Savannah Mikus (Florida State University BA ’20, MA ’22)

Categories: Visual Art & Architecture
Tagged with: 2018, Gluttony, Hell, Manga, South Korea, Spirits, Supernatural

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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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