Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

“The love that moves the sun and other stars,” The Culture Project on Facebook

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“‘The love that moves the sun and the other stars’ has called you into being. This love has willed that you exist. You and I are priceless. You and I are precious. You and I are irreplaceable. If are looking for affirmation, look no further. If you are looking for acceptance, look no further. If you are looking for purpose, look no further. It may seem like in the grand scheme of things you’re insignificant, but this couldn’t be further from the truth.

“When you love someone, it’s as if they’re the only one you see. You just can’t get your mind off them. In an even deeper way, God the Father loves you without exception, and without condition. How beautiful it is to be loved by love! How beautiful it is to share this love. Let’s change the world!”    –Dominic, “The Culture Project,” Facebook, October 27, 2018

The Lost Daughter, Film by Maggie Gyllenhaal (2021)

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promotional-poster-for-the-lost-daughter-featuring-olivia-coleman-sitting-on-a-beach“The Lost Daughter by Maggie Gyllenhaal is a 2021 film adaptation of the 2006 Elena Ferrante novel of the same name. The novel’s protagonist, Leda, is an Italian woman who works as an English Literature professor. Since the film is in English, Gyllenhaal decides to make some setting changes, and Leda becomes a professor working on Italian Literature instead in the film. For this reason, in a scene from the movie, we can see Leda working on some texts, among which is Dante’s Comedy. The frame shows the books just for a few seconds, but it is clear that one of them is open on the first Canto of Paradiso. Even if shown just for a few seconds, the specific text in Leda’s book is significant in connection to the whole movie. The insertion of Dante in the film is both the consequence of the adaptation of the book in a foreign setting and an homage from the director to Ferrante and the whole Italian literary tradition.”    –Contributor Martina Franzini

Contributed by Martina Franzini, Johns Hopkins University

“Our Desire is a Gift From the Stars,” A Unitarian Universalist Blogpost

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“The word desire comes from the Latin desiderare: ‘to long for,’ but the Latin desiderare comes from de sidere: ‘from the stars.’ From the stars.

“I find this extraordinary: to think that somehow our desire, our longing, is connected to the very stars in the sky. The stars, which share their light with us across such impossible distances of time and space. The poets might say our desire is a gift from the stars and is ultimately for them and the beauty and mystery and the creative fire and energy of which they are for us a sign.

“I’m reminded of the very last line of Dante’s Divine Comedy — Dante, the great medieval poet guided by his love for a human woman, Beatrice. In his imagination, his love and his longing for her lead him on a great journey all the way to Paradise and to a final vision of the love which moves and connects all things: l’amor che move il sole e le altre stelle… ‘the love that moves the sun and the other stars.’

“This love that moves the sun and the stars is with you too, body and spirit, and with everything and everyone. If we can live out of that, the rest will take care of itself.”    –Laura Horton-Ludwig, “Our Desire is a Gift From the Stars,” Unitarian Universalist Association

Dante in San Gimignano, 2011

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An actor declaims verses from Paradiso (33.108-111) in front of the Museo del Vino Vernaccia di San Gimignano. The video was captured by contributor Gerald Cloud on September 30, 2011.

Contributed by Gerald Cloud

For more on Dante and Vernaccia (the treasured Tuscan wine he cites in Purg. 24.24), see here.

“The love that moves the sun and other stars” (2019 Blogpost)

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“‘L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.’

“That’s how Dante Alighieri terminates his Master Piece the Divine Comedy.

“This quote has popped in my mind a lot recently, I’ve tried to substitute the word ‘love’ with many other (abstinence, caffeine, fear), but nothing works as well as it does.

“Dante had already understood in the XIV century, love is the strongest of all forces. 

“Will we be able to stop loving? Or to prevent loving from hurting us? Probably not. A few times in my life I’ve experienced having a broken heart. I thought that was just a metaphor, until I felt it happening in my chest, in my head, or actually in my heart. [. . .]

“So, I need to remember to be the center of my own solar system, I need to keep in mind that I’m the sun. And maybe, when love will move the sun, the other stars will move along.”   –Flavia, “The love that moves the sun and other stars,” ClassicFlavia, February 12, 2019

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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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