Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

10th Circle: Sycophants on Social Media

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“If Dante would be alive today and visited India, he would have added a tenth circle of Inferno (hell) in his famous poem, Divine Comedy, and assigned it to Sycophancy on the Social Web. He wouldn’t have to resort to allegory, it is all over Facebook, Twitter and comment boxes on blogs, for everyone to see…
“Sycophancy is defined as the overly fawning behaviour of a suck-up. A sycophant is a person who attempts to win favour at the cost of his own pride, principles, and peer respect…
“Dante would have been certainly shocked by the new fad of thoughtless hero worship in India’s IT hubs, universities and urban hang outs where the youth of the country are subjected to and fall victim for modern propaganda. Dante would have been surprised at the idiots, despite having a degree or two can’t apply the least bit of logic or discerning to what they are told by the media, politicians and the rest of the carpet baggers.” — cited from Sreedhar Pillai on Lasting Rose, July 16, 2013

Nine Circles of Employee Engagement Hell

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“If you have spent any time traveling in the HR landscape, chances are at some point or another you’ve found yourself in what I would call ‘Employee Engagement Hell.’ With a nod to Dante, I thought it might be fun to map the challenges to engagement a la the 14th century epic poem Divine Comedy… In Dante’s famous Inferno, the poet is led through the nine levels of the underworld by the Roman poet Virgil. The journey through each level (or circle) represents an allegorical journey of the human soul. My interpretation may be somewhat less allegorical—and definitely less epic!—but I do hope to offer some Virgil-like advice as to how to escape from each very real level of disengagement.” — Darcy Jacobsen, Globoforce, August 13, 2013

Read the full article here.

Inferno Rap Translation by Hugo (2013)

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Hugo_InfernoRap_coverIn July 2013, Melbourne-based hip hop artist Hugo released a rap translation of the first six cantos of Inferno.  Here is Hugo’s description of the project:

“Immortal innovators of the artform such as Rakim, Talib Kweli, Eminem, KRS One, Mos Def, Nas, Notorious BIG, Tupac Shakur and Pharoahe Monch, took this rap rhyming to incredible depths, exploring all angles of their own vernacular, spitting intricate multi-syllable rhymed verses over irresistible hip hop beats and delivering their version of the Dolce Stil Novo to an insatiable world, and in the process proving, like Dante, that their Vulgar vernacular could have global relevance in its eloquence.

“So, to this project. The basic agenda being simply to retranslate the Inferno using some of the forms of Rap – Multi-syllabic rhyme patterns, driving beats – to reengage with this epic medieval poem, and maybe contribute to garnering it a new audience. [ . . . ]” — YouTube

See the videos with lyrics here.

To listen to the full album, click here.

Contributed by Janet Gomez (PhD, Johns Hopkins University, 2015)

Dante Digitized: Debates in the Digital Humanities, ed. Matthew Gold (2012)

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Debates“From defining what a digital humanist is and determining whether the field has (or needs) theoretical grounding, to discussions of coding as scholarship and trends in data-driven research, this cutting-edge volume delineates the current state of the digital humanities and envisions potential futures and challenges.” [ . . . ] — DH Debates Website

For more information about the volume and the 2013 open-access edition, click here.

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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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