Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

The Crown S01E03, “Windsor” (2016)

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The-Crown-Edward-Letter-to-wife-frozen-sunless-hellIn Season 1, Episode 3 of Netflix’s The Crown, Edward, the Duke of Windsor, refers to his family members in Dantesque terms, aligning them with the traitors in the ninth circle. Writing to his wife, he explains [as actor Alex Jennings narrates in a voiceover], “My dear darling Peaches… They say hell is an inferno. What a sunless, frozen hell we both escaped in England. And what a bunch of ice-veined monsters my family are. How cold and thin-lipped, how dumpy and plain. How joyless and loveless.”

Read a recap of the episode (with spoilers) here.

Single’s Inferno Netflix Series (2021)

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Single’s Inferno (Korean: 솔로지옥, sollojiog) is a 2021 Korean reality TV series that follows 12 singles as they attempt to find love on a deserted island. The singles begin on an island named “Inferno” and vie for each other’s affection in order to go on dates at a resort called “Paradise”. The first season of the show is currently streaming on Netflix.

Watch a trailer for Single’s Inferno here.

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

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“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.

Larry David, Curb Your Enthusiasm (2021)

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“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, Englishtranslation 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)

Succession Season 1, Episode 8 – “Prague” (2018)

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“Succession is an HBO series created by Jesse Armstrong which showcases a fictional battle between four adult siblings to succeed their father, Logan Roy, as CEO of Waystar/Royco, a multibillion-dollar media conglomerate.

“In Season 1, Episode 8, entitled ‘Prague,’ Roman Roy, one of Logan Roy’s four adult children, recites a line from Canto 3 of Dante’s Inferno: ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter.’ This is a variation of line 9 of this canto as translated into English by John Ciardi in 1954, the full line being ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.'”    –Contributor Cesca Craig

See also the related post on HBO’s Succession here.

Photo and citing contributed by Cesca Craig (University of Arkansas, ’23)

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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