Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

“You Have Seven Mountains to Climb to Find Your True Self”

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“When I think of life as climbing mountains, the Purgatorio of Dante Alighieri comes to mind, the second part of the Divine Comedy.

In grand poetic style, Dante says the struggle a person faces to find his true self involves not one but seven mountains. And each mountain represents a type of suffering we must go through to rid ourselves of the sin, vices, peccadillos, the falsity that keeps us confined.

Like the Desert Fathers, he called those barriers-to-selfhood ‘seven deadly sins,’ each an attitude-cum-behavior that turns us against ourselves.

Among them are: being envious of what other people have or do (envy); acting with rage in our interactions with others (wrath); seeking more than we need in life (greed); and using power like a god to protect our possessions (pride).

[. . .]

And Dante said that, when a person faces up to the transformations purgatory exacts, he becomes a spiritual being, that is, he lives with an equanimity close to happiness.

And ‘spiritual’ does not mean something wispy and ethereal but the life of a body grounded in purpose, a body in communion with others, when political and economic realities align with justice.

In the third part of his trilogy, the Paradiso, Dante says no one gets to heaven who’s at odds with himself; heaven is for those who answer their calling. Such people treat others like they want to be treated, what Christians call being ‘Christ-like.'”    –Dennis Sullivan, The Altamont Enterprise, July 2, 2020

Final line of C.S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed

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“In the last chapter of A Grief Observed, Lewis admits that grief is, ‘like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape.’ If you’ve grieved over someone’s death, you know the image Lewis is casting. Happiness almost feels a little haunted, but time evaporates the wetness from some of the tears, albeit gradual, ‘like the warming of a room or the coming of daylight,’ says Lewis.

[. . .]

The end is akin to the beginning of A Grief Observed, if only in the questions it doesn’t answer and the doubts that are still raised as a result of the horrible occurrences of this world. In the end, Lewis knows that God is more mystery than reason, and his reliance on Him, and the hope in the resurrection of the dead, is wrapped in a faith in a God who can be found.

‘Poi si torno all’ eternal fontana,’ ends the book. It is from Dante. Beatrice turns to the eternal fountain and keeps walking. Lewis doesn’t dismiss his grief, but he is more at peace with God at the end of his notes, and, like Joy’s last words to the chaplain, Lewis is at peace with God.”    –Zach Kincaid, cslewis.com, February 29, 2012

Contributed by Daniel Christian

Day-to-Day Dante: Exploring Personal Myth Through the Divine Comedy

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“Day-to-Day Dante: Exploring Personal Myth Through The Divine Comedy (2011) is a series of meditations, one for each day of the year, using between 6-9 lines of the poem for each entry. The book is comprised of approximately 121 entries for each of the canticas Dante created: Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. Following each quote from the poem is a short summary of what is taking place at this moment in the pilgrimage. Then follows a reflection on what this might have to do with our lives today. At the bottom of each page is a Writing Meditation in which the reader is invited to journal how this passage might apply to them now or in his/her past. Through these writing meditations, the reader will uncover parts of his/her personal myth.”    –Dennis P. Slattery, dennispslattery.com, January 28, 2011

La Divina Commedia (2015) – Paolo Di Paolo

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“A 750 anni dalla nascita di Dante, è possibile raccontare ai ragazzi La Divina Commedia? La sfida è stata accolta da uno scrittore come Paolo Di Paolo che, accompagnato dalle splendide illustrazioni di Matteo Berton, ci fa rivivere lo straordinario viaggio di Dante.”    —La Nuova Frontiera Junior, July 30, 2015

Per le rime: Beatrice risponde a Dante by Enrico Bernard

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“Una nuova forma di saggio sperimentale presentato come monologo lirico-drammatico sul più grande rapporto d’amore della letteratura mondiale. Fu vero amore? Oppure Dante si prese qualche licenza poetica e qualche libertà espressiva? Un divertente cavalcata al femminile nei canti del Paradiso che vengono smontati e ridefiniti dalla protagonista stessa, Beatrice, che finalmente fa sentire la sua non più flebile, ma dura e contestatrice voce.”    –Enrico Bernard, Amazon, December 1, 2016

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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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