Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture
On October 9, 2019, American band Whirlybird released their EP Hot Flashes which included a song called “Dante’s Inferno”. The lyrics make reference to Dante’s journey through Hell, stating: “Dante’s coming through the inferno”.
Listen to the song here.
View the full lyrics of “Dante’s Inferno” here.
Hexperos’ 2020 release, “Midway Upon the Journey of Our Life” draws inspiration from Canto I of the Inferno.
“‘Midway upon the journey of our life, we could found ourselves within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.’ Never there was a sentence more apt to describe the disturbance we all feel at some point of our lives, when we feel lost, empty and we don’t know if the road that we have chosen, the journey of life undertaken, is actually the right one for us.
“The songs are stories of life, of sharing as well as in the Divine Comedy. As a matter of fact, who is in pain, often makes new encounters, shares their stories, through sharing and listening to the experiences of others we grow, we find a light in the darkness.” [. . .] — Alessandra Santovito, Hexperos
Listen to the song here.
Learn more about Hexperos on their website, here.
Album art by Nicolás Menay
For Andersen: Il Mensile di Letteratura e Illustrazione per il Mondo dell’Infanzia, Lorenzo Coveri wrote “Dante700: di tutto un pop” March 25, 2021, with many references to Dante’s reception in 20th century Italian culture.
For Mentelocale, he wrote “Dantedì 2021. Cantare Dante, da Petrolini a De André, da Jovanotti a Fedez, tra rock e poesia,” March 25, 2021.
“This is Iced Earth’s heaviest album, but it still retains powerful symphonic sounds and heart-twisting acoustic passages. It also has all sorts of song structures, time changes, and cool stuff packed everywhere. Iced Earth had some long songs on the previous albums, but on this one they show their ability to create a full-fledged epic. ‘Dante’s Inferno’ takes us through the Nine Planes of Hell for sixteen minutes, each plane something new and demonic. This album was written during angry times — and it shows.” —Iced Earth
Lyrics include: “Damned, the wrathful and the vain / Suffer the fifth plain / Cross the river Styx / Heed your crucifix / The muddied corpses cry / Howling to the sky / Reach the other side / Open wide the gate!”
Cited in Loudwire’s “11 Metal Songs Inspired by Dante’s Inferno” by Katie Irizarry (August 15, 2018).
