Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

  • Submit a Citing
  • Map
  • Links
  • Bibliography
  • User’s Guide
  • Teaching Resources
  • About

Dante’s Inferno: It’s Time for the Lost Sequel Article, Gina Roberts (2021)

January 13, 2022 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

dantes_inferno_video_game_sequal_screenshot

“Rumors have been surfacing regarding the potential return of an old franchise that is expected to be announced during next month’s EA Play.

“Dante’s Inferno is a fantastic game that received a lot of marketing and heavy support from EA at the time, even having a Super Bowl ad. It also received generally positive reviews and was impressive-looking for its time. Even though it has some graphic elements, it caused little controversy and went on to inspire a comic, an animated short, and a planned film adaptation.

“Dante’s Inferno was fantastic, but it didn’t get a chance to blossom. Instead of resurrecting games and franchises everyone knows and already loves, it’s time for the industry to pay attention to some underrated gems, giving life to titles that could have flourished if given the chance. Dante’s Inferno is a prime candidate for such treatment — after all, dark beat ’em ups certainly haven’t gone out of style.” [. . .]    –Gina Roberts, Comic Book Resources, June 22, 2021 (retrieved January 12, 2022)

Categories: Digital Media
Tagged with: Adaptations, Articles, Games, Gaming, Hell, Sequels, United States, Video Games

Undertale Video Game (Toby Fox, 2015)

November 10, 2021 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

undertale-game-screenshot

The 2015 video game Undertale, created by developer Toby Fox, features implicit references/similarities to Dante’s Inferno. These citings are frequently discussed and debated in online forums by the game’s fanbase.

“In Undertale, your character falls down a hole in a mountain that takes him to a bizarre world full of many unique characters. The characters you encounter are each plagued by their own different vices and you as the player get to choose how to deal with them. If you treat the characters with respect and befriend them peacefully, you lead them all out to the surface at the end, but if you choose violence, you remain in the underworld forever. The character’s similarities with the souls that Dante encounters and the concept of contrapasso are just some examples of how Undertale relates to the Comedy.”    –Contributor Tucker Onishi

To see some fan conversations about the link between Undertale and the Inferno, click here.

Contributed by Tucker Onishi (University of Arkansas, ’22)

Categories: Consumer Goods, Digital Media
Tagged with: 2015, Contrapasso, Digital Games, Inferno, United States, Video Games

Katherine Powlesland, Narrative Strategies for Participation in Dante’s Divine Comedy (2021)

October 27, 2021 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

videogame-theory-in-katherine-powleslands-narrative-strategies-for-participation-in-dantes-divine-comedy-2021“Katherine Powlesland’s new book Narrative Strategies for Participation in Dante’s Divine Comedy, which will be Italian Perspectives 53, brings an entirely new angle to Dante studies. This is a bold claim, given that Dante studies is enjoying its 700th anniversary this year, but Katherine is bringing to bear theories from cognitive neuroscience and from the critical study of videogames, so I think we can be fairly sure that the medieval scholiasts did not get there before her. But there is a certain affinity between the desire of modern game writers, and the desire of 13th-century epic poets, to enmesh their readers in a participatory experience.

“An immersive game today, or a text like the Divine Comedy or the Roman de la Rose, very much want the reader to experience for herself: to be in that wood, to find her way around that wall, to look into that mirror-like pool with her own eyes. Katherine sees both media as governed by mechanics of narrative participation.” [. . .]    –“Bringing Video Game Theory to Dante,” Modern Humanities Research Association, June 27, 2021

The book will be released in 2022. See more information about it, in particular a discussion of its cover art, here.

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: 2022, Books, Digital Games, Games, Immersive Games, Media, Narrative, Neuroscience, Participatory Culture, Video Games

Square, Final Fantasy IV (1991)

October 19, 2021 By Ezra Berman '23

“Final Fantasy IV features four Elemental Lords named Rubicante, Scarmiglione, Barbariccia, and Cagnazzo, after members of the Malebranche. A mid-game boss, Calcabrina, also has the name of a Malebranche demon. Also, there exists a superboss in the DS version named Geryon.”    —Wikipedia

Categories: Consumer Goods
Tagged with: Circles of Hell, Hell, Inferno, Malebolge, Malebranche, Video Games

Dante’s Purgatorio, video game by Charlie McKinney

October 18, 2021 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

Charlie McKinney of DeMatha Catholic High School (Hyattsville, Maryland) built a text-based video game based on Dante’s Purgatorio. The game was created as a project for ethics and theology teacher Homer Twigg’s unit on Dante’s Purgatorio in 2021. Check out the game here.

Categories: Digital Media
Tagged with: 2021, High School, Hyattsville, Maryland, Pedagogy, Purgatorio, Student Projects, Students, United States, Video Games

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 13
  • Next Page »

Categories

  • Consumer Goods (194)
  • Digital Media (126)
  • Dining & Leisure (107)
  • Music (190)
  • Odds & Ends (91)
  • Performing Arts (361)
  • Places (132)
  • Visual Art & Architecture (416)
  • Written Word (845)

Random Post

  • “Dante’s Inferno” (Sean Meredith, Paul Zaloom, Sandow Birk, 2007)

Frequent Tags

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 700th anniversary Abandon All Hope America American Politics Art Artists Beatrice Blogs Books California Circles of Hell Comics Dark Wood Divine Comedy England Fiction Films Florence France Games Gates of Hell Hell History Humor Illustrations Inferno Internet Italian Italy Journalism Journeys Literary Criticism Literature Love Music New York City Non-Fiction Novels Paintings Paolo and Francesca Paradise Paradiso Performance Art Poetry Politics Purgatorio Purgatory Religion Restaurants Reviews Rock Science Fiction Sculptures Social Media Technology Television Tenth Circle Theater Translations United Kingdom United States Universities Video Games Virgil

ALL TAGS »

Image Mosaic

How to Cite

Coggeshall, Elizabeth, and Arielle Saiber, eds. Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture. Website. Access date.

Creative

 





© 2006-2023 Dante Today
research.bowdoin.edu