Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture
Among scheming serial killer Paul Spector’s books in his clandestine
hotel room is THE INFERNO. His 16-year-old minion, Katie Benedetto,
reads out the first few verses in a beautiful Italian. Paul then
attacks Katie, and in the following episode, she breaks into his hotel
room and leaves a not-so-nice message in lipstick on the bathroom
mirror. –Adam Glynn (Bowdoin College ’17)
In both the book and the movie Gone Girl the main character, Amy, says about marriage: “Marriage is compromise and hard work, and then more hard work and communication and compromise. And then work. Abandon all hope, ye who enter.”
For the 2012 book by Gillian Flynn, see the Gone Girl page on Flynn’s website.
For the 2014 film directed by David Fincher, see the film’s official website.
Contributed by Autumn Friesen (University of Texas ’16)
Columbia Law professor Robert A. Ferguson published a study of the theory informing American systems of punishment in penal institutions. Calling for a new model that emphasizes correction over condemnation, Ferguson writes, “Punishment is a reflexive response to misbehavior, and punishers in their anger are always spontaneously at the ready. Rehabilitation requires thought, a plan, work, and the willingness to probe slow changes in more mundane objects of attrition. It will always be easier to ask for punishment than to institute a treatment program in a prison system where punishment comes first. The answer, to the extent that we can give one, lies in something separate, something either beyond or after punishment.
“The Divine Comedy is a limited guide, but it does reveal the pernicious parameters in the psychology of punishment and gives a response to them. [. . .] Criminal justice has gone astray, lost in a dark wood of its own making. It is time, more than time, to find a way out.” — Robert A. Ferguson, Inferno: An Anatomy of American Punishment, 249.
From David Cole’s review in the New York Times: “[Ferguson] insists that the only way out is to reconceptualize punishment. Invoking the circles of hell in Dante’s Divine Comedy, Ferguson argues that we need to reorient our prisons away from punishment and debasement and instead model them on Purgatorio, where individuals are restored to heaven through the care and love of others.” — David Cole, “Punitive Damage,” New York Times Sunday Book Review (May 16, 2014)
R. E. Parrish, October 7, 2014
Contributed by Bryce Livingston
“Following his irreverent, inspired Oulipean reworking of Shakespeare’s sonnets, in his new book Philip Terry takes on Dante’s Inferno, shifting the action from the 12th to the 20th and 21st centuries, and relocating it to the modern “walled city” of the University of Essex. Dante’s Phlegethon becomes the river Colne; his popes are replaced by vice-chancellors and ministers for education; the warring Guelfs and Ghibellines are reimagined as the sectarians of Belfast, Terry’s home city. Meanwhile, the guiding figure of Virgil takes on new form as Ted Berrigan, one-time Essex writer-in-residence and a poet who had himself imagined the underworld. In reimagining an Inferno for our times, Terry stays paradoxically true to the spirit of Dante’s original text.” –backcover
All submissions will be considered for posting. Bibliographic references and scholarly essays are also welcome for consideration.
Coggeshall, Elizabeth, and Arielle Saiber, eds. Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante’s Works in Contemporary Culture. Website. Access date.
