Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

Emma Safe’s “Between Three Worlds”

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“Taking influence from personal experience, classical mythology and Dante’s Commedia, concentrating particularly on existential and ontological themes, the works collected as Between Three Worlds explore human potential and human transience. Space and time is radically questioned. Figures are pulled between states of being; through sublime ascent, catastrophic destruction and the uneasy predicaments in-between. Avoiding idealism and with no certain answers, these works attempt to question different types of love, different states of being, examining the edges of existence and beyond.” [. . .]    –Emma Safe, Between Three Worlds.

Detective Dante Comics (2005-2007)

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“The comic book series Detective Dante is loosely based on the Divine Comedy. Not only is the protagonist named Dante, but the whole series is divided into three parts called Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. The first issues in particular contain many references and textual quotations of Dante’s poem.”   –Contributor Alessio Aletta

The series was created by Lorenzo Baroli and Roberto Recchioni. It was published by Eura Editoriale from 2005-2007.

See the gallery of cover images on the Grand Comics Database.

Contributed by Alessio Aletta (University of Toronto)

Magnum X Dante– Limited edition ice cream pops inspired by the Comedy

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Limited edition ice cream pops made in honor of the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death.  Purgatorio pop arriving in May-June, and Paradiso pop in July-August.

“Magnum, la più alta espressione del piacere nel mondo del gelato, celebra Dante con un omaggio alla sua Divina Commedia, la più alta espressione d’arte della storia della letteratura italiana.  A 700 anni dalla morte del Sommo Poeta, arrivano tre limited edition dedicate alle tre cantiche Dantesche, per vivere un’esperienza coinvolgente e sorprendente.  Un viaggio che inizia dal gusto intrigante dell’inferno, per poi assaporare la dimensione multi-sensoriale del purgatorio e raggiungere il suo apice con il piacere puro e delicato del paradiso.”   —Magnum

Contributed by Brandon Essary

The “Maze” in Westworld

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Cristian Ispir, Associate Fellow of the Centre de Recherche Universitaire Lorrain d’Histoire, writes, “The influence of Dante on the HBO series Westworld is as subtle as it is undeniable. The focal point of Season 1 is the ‘Maze’, an elusive place/concept represented by a schematic labyrinth having a human figure at its centre, analogous to the human effigy in Paradiso 33 (“painted with our effigy” [Par. 33.131]) which symbolises the accomplishment of human self-understanding and the end-point of Dante’s upward journey. In the simulacrum that is Westworld, the Dantean idea of reaching self-knowledge through a labyrinthine guided pilgrimage is key to the emancipation of the artificial ‘hosts’ from the engineered universe they inhabit and a kind of trasumanar available to each agent endowed with free will. The Westworld theme park becomes an existential iteration of the Comedy moving through vertical worlds away from ignorance and towards self-realisation.”

See Cristian Ispir’s blog Biblonia, where he often posts on Dante.

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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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