Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

Seven Circles of Baby Class Hell

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“As any self-assured stranger will tell you, babies need to be socialised if they’re to grow into well-rounded adults, skilled in the arts of compromise, empathy, and not interfering in other people’s business at bus stops. A fun way to do this, and to meet other like-minded (baby-brained) mummies, is to enroll your child in a class. There are a multitude to choose from, all intended to maximise the potential for parental humiliation. But which to go for? Here are seven popular contenders to consider…” — Tina Bored, Metro, April 8, 2015

Read the full list here.

Dante’s Nine Circles of Hell if He Were a Parent Today

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“As parents there are a lot of things we smile our way through for the love of little John and Jane when, if we’re honest, we’d rather be getting a root canal. If Dante

lived today and wrote his famous literary tome Inferno from the perspective of a parent, the eternal punishments doled out in his nine circles of hell might look something like this…” — This Michigan Life, October 8, 2013

Find out Dante’s Nine Circles of Parenting Hell by reading the full article here.

dante-parent-michigan-life-2013

 

Paolo and Francesca Bears

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paolo-and-francesca-bears“Paolo looks handsome and energetic in a green knitted jumper, with his named embroidered across the front. Francesca looks ‘bella’ in her red knitted jumper, and is delighted that her name is clearly embroidered on the front. Both bears are a wonderful support in the classroom. They bring a real Italian flavour and excitement into school and really adore being with the children.”    —Golden Daffodils

Dale E. Basye, “Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go” Series

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dale-e-basye-heck-where-the-bad-kids-go-seriesHeck: Where Bad Kids Go is a series of books that seems to have drawn heavy inspiration from Dante’s Inferno. After the first installment in the series, each subsequent book is focused on a specific “circle of Heck.” The characters’ names seem to draw inspiration from different sources of “infernal” literature – more specifically, Dante, Milton, and Goethe: Virgil, Milton, and Fauster, for example. At one point in the series, the protagonists have to cross “the great tunnel of dung-the River Styx, the final, fecal resting place of all the world’s sewage.”

Contributed by Gianluca P., 4th grade

The Nine Circles of Hell, as Depicted in LEGO (2012)

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lego-commedia

“Here’s a series of play sets that won’t be debuting in the toy aisle anytime soon. Sculptor Mihai Mihu has built this fantastic and creepy nine-part collection of LEGO dioramas based on Dante Alighieri’s Inferno. Witness the Divine Comedy depicted in tiny plastic bricks, from the River Styx to the frozen head of Satan.” [. . .]   –Cyriaque Lamar, io9, May 12, 2012

Contributed by Carol Chiodo

See also:
The Telegraph, August 17, 2013 (note that in slide 10, the artist says that he knew the structure of Dante’s vision of hell, but that he didn’t read the Commedia, because he wanted to imagine his own version of punishments for each given sin/s)

Contributed by Leslie Morgan

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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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