Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

“#109 Dante – Love that Moves the Sun and Other Stars,” Man Versus Ideas

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“God almighty, but isn’t Heaven boring? That’s the only conclusion you can draw from reading this excerpt from Dante’s Divine Comedy.

“A word of background. You’ll know Dante for his trip into Hell, all the way down the nine circles […] to the very mouth of Satan himself. There are people being chased by hounds; people being boiled in melted gold; people stripped naked and permanently incinerated by snakes; popes buried head-first in the dirt. It’s all riveting stuff.

“But Dante wrote three parts to his Divine Comedy. The first dealt with hell. The other two dealt with purgatory and with heaven. And heavens, but it’s dull. You get the sense of things to come when one character, in the outskirts of heaven reserved for the imperfectly faithful, tells Dante that:

I am Piccarda – as you’ll know I am –
And blessed among the many who are blessed
Within this slowest moving of the spheres
…
We in will are brought to rest
By power of the caritas [divine care] that makes us will
No more than we have, nor thirst for more.

“The problem with writing about heaven is that heaven has to be perfect, at least in the eyes of its denizens. They want for nothing, which is jolly tricky for the writer who need a bit of antagonism to get his characters out of bed in the morning. All there is to talk about, over and over again, is how wonderful god and his works are.

“Milton had the same problem with Paradise Lost, where for precisely the same reason the devil keeps stealing the show. But there is no devil in this story, and so we have to sit through pages of Christian loyalty. The only moment the story comes alive is when St Peter turns up and starts cursing all the modern popes for ruining his legacy.

“It shows why religion and literature never really get on. In the final analysis, stories don’t like perfection; they are like oysters in need of that bit of grit if they are going to create a pearl. Religion has a higher goal in mind; it promises paradise and doesn’t want anyone examining the small print.  On earth at least, the former seems to outweigh the latter.”   —addisonsteel, “#109 Dante – Love that Moves the Sun and Other Stars,” WordPress, August 8, 2016 (retrieved March 28, 2024)

“Beauty Awakens the Soul to Act”

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“You know that invigorating almost galvanizing rush through your body you get when you stare vehemently into a blazing, pulchritudinous fire, that moment of intoxicated excitement that feels almost mesmerizing. Or, the feeling when you strike a match and it makes an expeditious roaring noise before it gradually quiets down to a small, but steady flame with much menacing potential? That’s how I describe love. It starts as a minuscule, innocent cinder that has the abeyance to turn into a breath taking, overpowering wildfire. We all know it’s perilous, but it’s all worth the risk to be a part of such a prepossessing few moments. Love has risks, it could start out as the inconsequential ember of a carefully lit match, but burned out from lack of care. It is painful, especially if it seemed once as perfect, but it’s part of life and learning to love. But occasionally there’s that one perfect strike of a match, that miraculous, exceptional flame that gives that perfect balance of warmth and light to guide your once dark paths, but still makes you take risks to stare deeper in the flame. When you find the person who makes the ember in your soul turn into a wild fire and never lets it burn out, hold on to them, you know it’s love.”   —ZahideGashi, “Beauty Awakens the Soul to Act,” Tumblr, 2016 (retrieved March 28, 2024)

“Floodlines Part VI: ‘Reckoning'”

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“Well, I think the one that was most penetrating that I’ll never forget is in St. Bernard Parish. The whole levee just disappeared. Liquified. So all the ships and the shrimp boats and everything just went right over the Arpent levee and into St. Bernard, and then the water couldn’t get out. And so you had cars on top of houses that we found, and you had these skilled care facilities with all these dead senior citizens inside of them. It was, it was like a scene from Dante’s hell. It was really hard.”   —J. David Rogers, “Floodlines Part VI: ‘Reckoning,'” The Atlantic, March 11, 2020 (retrieved March 26, 2024)

Read the transcript of each part here

“the love that moves the sun and the other stars,” Ojai Blogpost

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“Dante wrote about ‘the love that moves the sun and the other stars’ which is quite different than how most of us experience love. The practices of yoga help us see the ways we hold our minds small, our bodies tight, our hearts hardened. As we relax we have the possibility to see love in new, wondrous ways. Not only is this helpful for our well being, but it also benefits a kinder and more peaceful planet.

“I first became interested in the moon while on tour and a music executive. We were spending weeks at a time on the road going city to city. I turned to the moon for sense of stability in something wiser. Sweeter, even. After the concert each evening I’d gaze into the night sky in search of my friend. I began to track our tour time not so much by our itinerary, but by the shape of the moon and where she was in the sky.

“Thus began my relationship with the moon. It didn’t start by asking permission, it didn’t start by consulting astrologers, it didn’t start by reading books. It was wonder, awe, and love.

“These horiscopes are an offering, of what I’m learning as I lean into the “love that moves the sun and other stars”, and as I anchor them in to my body here on Earth.

“It all feels rather Heavenly, I must say.

“Love, Winifred”   —Winifred Wilson, “the love that moves the sun and the other stars,” Ojai, May 16 2021 (retrieved March 26, 2024)

“The Love that moves the sun and the other stars,” everyevery Blogpost

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“I believe in numerology, astrology and the geometry/patterns that piece us all together in the universe. I do have some doubts about daily horoscope predictions like ‘you’ll likely meet the love of your life today’ or ‘you’ll find some money in the boxers you wore in high school today’ but I believe the general projection of the character traits and ideals(or lack of) of people born in certain periods of time. For instance it can’t be a coincidence that many of the Pisces I know love swimming and have an apt musical taste but tend to be quite fearful. Further down the line, a deep attachment to their mothers and homebodiness seems to prevail amongst many cancers I know.

[. . .]

“Admittedly, I have twisted my adherence to astrology in the past. When certain relationships didn’t pull through, it was easier for me to cite astrology as i pulled out. Well, I’d say, ‘Gemini and Capricorn are incompatible according to astrology anyway’. Of course i failed to acknowledge that Love is the greatest force in the universe. Strong enough to realign the stars and make every theory, law and rule crumble. Astrology is credible but it only affects you to the degree of power with which you bestow it. In the end patience, kindness and hardwork which are hallmarks of Love conquer all things.

“There are other signs that are not so compatible with Gemini according to astrology(Pisces,Virgo Scorpio,Taurus). it’ll be foolhardy to avoid getting intimate with people of these signs due to ‘the fault in our stars’ because every zodiac sign is filled with the most amazing people. compatibility is not everything, i’m learning that what makes any relationship work is not how compatible you are but how you deal with incompatibility and this is the mindset that one needs to climb the stairs towards ‘The Love that moves the sun and the other stars’ as the Italian poet, Dante Aligheri put it.”   —ifeanyi, “The Love that moves the sun and the other stars,” everyevery, June 5, 2019 (retrieved March 26, 2024)

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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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