Read the journal article here.
Agnosco Veteris, Nina C. Young
“In book IV of Virgil’s Aeneid, Dido, long in grief over her late husband Sychaeus’s death, is suddenly awakened from emotional slumber by the visiting Trojan hero Aeneas. In an upheaval of emotion, she proclaims, ‘Agnosco veteris vestigia flammae,’ or ‘I recognize the traces of an ancient fire.'”
“The quote resurfaces in Dante’s Divine Comedy. The overarching allegory of this epic poem traces themes of Dante’s spiritual quest through symbolism. Dante, guided by Virgil, achieves literary immortality through the act of storytelling that appropriates and amalgamates references to antiquity, classical literature, mythology, Christianity, and (then) contemporary Italian politics. In Purgatorio 30, Dante feels the presence of Beatrice and matches his emotional upheaval to that of Dido. Dante makes a final tribute to Virgil by stating, ‘conosco i segni de l’antica fiamma’ – an Italian translation of the Latin ‘Agnosco veteris vestigia flammae.’”
[. . .]
“Dante appropriates explicit cultural references and symbols as a tool to weave the narrative of the Divine Comedy. However, when I was collecting the source material for Vestigia Flammae, I abandoned explicit quotation. Rather, I tried my hand at writing imagined faux folk, modal, and fanfare-like source-music that could be mistaken for something pre-existing.”
“Literature as Self Help – The Life Lessons of Dante’s Divine Comedy” (2015 Blogpost)
“Why do we teach literature? What’s the point of studying history’s ‘stories?’ Most English teachers would acknowledge the focus of self discovery and character education in the novels we teach. In fact, the standard has long been to recognize literature as a ‘record of the human experience.’ We read to commiserate and learn and understand who we are on both an individual and global historical scale.
“That’s what makes Rod Dreher’s recent [2015] piece for the Wall Street Journal so cool. Dreher, who is a columnist also known for his unique take on conservatism, offers a unique and surprising explanation of Dante’s Divine Comedy as a classic of self help – ‘The Ultimate Self Help Book: Dante’s Divine Comedy. It’s not just a classic of world literature; it’s the most astonishing self help book of all time.’ Dreher explains his own personal struggles and the coping mechanisms he picked up from Dante after browsing the classic in a bookstore.” [. . .] –Posted by mmazenko, “Literature as Self Help – The Life Lessons of Dante’s Divine Comedy,” A Teacher’s View, March 20, 2015
“The Love That Moves The Sun and Other Stars” (2015)
“Today I invite you to reflect on these final lines of Dante’s Divine Comedy. I would recommend reading them many times, contemplating what it must be like to experience the presence of God through the heavenly beatific vision.
“According to Boethius, love works like physics. It’s an elemental force. In fact, desire (eros) is an animating impulse that governs the entire universe, moving the sun and all the stars.
[. . .]
“God’s love is true love precisely because God knows we have the ability to spurn that love. Otherwise, grace changes from gift to entitlement. Love isn’t love until you give it away! This sort of love, in the final analysis, is the reason why a totally sufficient and perfect God would create something else and allow it to participate in him. If you find yourself suffering today – from end-of-semester stress, work problems, or anything else – try to remember that the source and summation of your created existence is to love. This love is necessarily a movement outside of self, a movement that ultimately affirms your identity in a new and revelatory reality. In this reality, ‘our image fuses/Into the circle and finds its place in it.'” –Benjamin Winter, “The Love that Moves the Sun and the Other Stars,” Conciliar Post, April 17, 2015
Undertale Video Game (Toby Fox, 2015)
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)
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