Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

Wandering Star Short Film, dir. Sai Kelly (2015)

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“Wandering Star is a short film by filmmaker Sai Kelly. The short film begins with Dante’s opening lines from Inferno, Canto 1 but with a notable difference in that the words “our life” are replaced in the film with “my life.” The protagonist of the film, Dante, is clearly in distress and confused, much like the poet Dante when he appears in the dark wood. As Kelly’s Dante struggles with his confusion, a payphone nearby rings. On answering the payphone, we, along with the protagonist are introduced to a voice who later is called Virgil. Virgil shows the protagonist the most painful and darkest parts of the city where Dante lives. The people suffering “see no way out” mimicking the way in which there is no escape for the sinners of the Inferno. In the end, Dante faints, calls out to Virgil who tells him to run, and wakes up back on the streets of his city a changed person.”    –Contributor Cameron Gunter

A full video of Wandering Star and more information about Sai Kelly can be found here.

Contributed by Cameron Gunter (University of Arkansas, ’22)

Undertale Video Game (Toby Fox, 2015)

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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)

Macrodosing Podcast’s “Hell” Episode

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macrodosing-coverThe “Hell” episode of the podcast Macrodosing features Dante’s Inferno, hypothesizing which circles of Hell contemporary figures would find themselves in. Contributor Jack Switzer notes, “The podcast episode featured lengthy discussion of Dante’s Inferno and the structure of the Dante’s version of Hell, and the impact that the Inferno had on current views of Hell. The podcast’s hosts also placed contemporary figures in the respective circles of Hell. For the discussion, the hosts first briefly described each circle and then assigned modern day celebrities. Some notable celebrity examples included Jeff Bezos for the sin of avarice and Napoleon in the eighth circle of seducers and panderers.”

“When he wrote that, I don’t think he knew that eight-hundred years from now, that would be people’s idea of what Hell was, That’s what the majority of people in this country, they don’t get it from cartoons or pop culture, but even those derive themselves from what Dante wrote about Hell, just kinda like, yeah he was a scholar, but he was also just a hundred percent speculating on what Hell looked like. The one thing that I respect the hell out of Dante for doing is in the Inferno—he just put his enemies and his contemporaries that he thought were trash poets compared to him—he just put them in Hell. He was like, ‘I’m gonna write a book about hell just so I can roast my biggest enemies and I love the pettiness.” [. . .]    –PFT Commenter, Macrodosing, April 6, 2021

Watch or listen to the podcast episode here. Discussion of Dante’s Inferno begins at the timestamp, 1:10:09.

Contributed by Jack Switzer (University of Arkansas ’22)

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)

The Divine Comedy NFTs

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divine-comedy-nft-screenshot“THΞ DIVINΞ COMΞDY project consists of 700 NFTs with randomly combined Canti of Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso as a celebration of the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death.

“The Divine Comedy represents a 14th-century vision of the afterlife, describing Dante’s journey through the three realms of the dead: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Today Dante’s masterpiece is widely considered to be the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of world literature.

“ti_series is a collective of friends, crypto art lovers, having the aim of creating some of the most fascinating series stored on chain.”[. . .]    –ti_series, OpenSea (retrieved November 3, 2021)

For more information about ti_series and their work, view their Twitter page here.

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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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