The Doctor's Dance with the Devil

Link: Doctor Who on Netflix, DVD, BBC. (For Netflix): It is under Season 2, "Satan's Pit"

           For those who love The Doctor (from Doctor Who), the producer, Russell Davies, decided to incorporate Dante’s vision of Lucifer inside the Doctor Who story line.

            In the episode, “Satan’s Pit” from Series nine (2006), The Doctor takes his TARDIS to a base (on top of a rocky planet) that is floating towards a black hole. There are humans and their Oods (basically, alien slaves) on this base and every hour they become closer to the black hole. What is even more dangerous, there seems to be a Beast that is controlling some members of the base, telepathically, and is making the members do evil acts (mainly kill other not possessed members). As The Doctor gains more information, he develops the plan to go deep underneath the planet where the Beast lives.

            We find out that the Beast is actually the Devil or Lucifer trapped underneath the asteroid. There are similarities between Lucifer in the Inferno and in Doctor Who. One big similarity is that both Lucifers are not privileged to have a voice. In the Inferno, Lucifer is deemed a speechless creature who spends eternity eating three biggest betrayers of history (Judas, Cassius, and Brutus) with half of his body suspended in ice, even though in Doctor Who, Lucifer is suspended in fire. Both fire and ice suit Lucifer in which he is a fiery, violent creature whose soul is cold and evil. The point of taking away Lucifer’s ability to speak is a deliberate act of making him a powerless creature. Since it was his pride (that he should be a more powerful deitiy than God) caused his downfall, it seems only right for him to not any of the power he so desired.

            Another similarity between the two Lucifers is the structure in which they reside in. For instance, Lucifer in the Inferno lives in Hell, which is funnel-shaped and leads down to the lowest level, Judecca. When The Doctor goes underneath the planet, it is shaped as funnel that has a gravity field. Even though there aren’t other levels of Hell in the funnel shaped gravity field, it still remains a domain where Lucifer dominates and resides.

            Although both Davies and Dante give Lucifer no voice to speak, Davies has to stick to the Doctor Who plotline. The TARDIS is not only time machine (in simplest terms), but also a language (alien, human, Siltheen, Daleks, etc.) translator. Lucifer communicates to The Doctor through a series of grunts that The Doctor is able to decipher into verbal words because of the TARDIS. Also, Lucifer is also given a voice when uses the humans and Oods, telepathically, to do his bidding and speak. One phrase that is repeated constantly by the possessed is that, “only darkness remains.” Thus, giving Lucifer more power than Dante has allocated in his Inferno. When The Doctor is translating the grunts of Lucifer, Lucifer says that if even he dies, the thought of him will always remain. The idea of Lucifer does not only exist in Christianity, but in most religions and non-religions as well. This is a very interesting concept because although Dante takes away Lucifer’s power to speak, Lucifer still has power. He has power over people because the very thought of him invokes fear and fear controls people. If fear didn’t control people, then Hell wouldn’t be deemed as a bad place to go that everyone tries to avoid. The whole construction of the Inferno is to be warning to the Florentine people (and the Church) of what their evil will lead them as well as a warning to Dante to not succumb to the temptation his fellow Florentines did. Words do have power, but thoughts have even greater power.

   

Art of the Inferno

Links: http://www.dantesinfernoart.com/  this is the art by Dino Di Durante in 2012
http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/artworks/dali/divinecomedy.htm  Dali in 1951
http://www.worldofdante.org/gallery_dore.html  Gustave Dore in the 1860s

Entry: After seeing some artwork inspired by Inferno of Dante's Divine Comedy, I began to look up more modern renditions of Dante's work. The amount of art inspired by the comedy is tremendous, but it speaks to Dante's influence that the works are continually reproduced by author's every single year.
    I was most surprised to find a 60 piece collection of painting by Dino Di Durante done only last year. The illustrations started as a comic book and later progressed into an animated film. These media agree with Durante's target adolescent audience. He neither wanted to replicate the dark lithographs of Gustave Dore nor the abstract illustrations by Salvador Dali. Instead he wanted to make an accurate yet colorful rendition of the comedy. Below you will see the differences between the different styles.


The Avarice and Prodigal by Dore.

 The avarice and Prodigal as interpreted by Dali.


The Avarice by Durante 2012.


     Personally, I found the most interesting illustrations to be Dali's. They represent the feeling of sin and guilt and hell that the Inferno is based upon. However, I thought the Dore lithographs were detailed and complex enough to give the same effect if you were familiar with the scenes depicted. Despite being the most recent, Durante's paintings are disappointing as a tool to understand the Comedy. Granted, he was aiming towards a younger audience, but I felt that the illustrations were over simplified and not as grotesque as the comedy's descriptions are themselves. It is not useful to "dumb" something down to get people to understand it; a good artist or teacher should be able to elevate students to a higher level of understanding.

Anime, not just TV, have Deep Meanings.

Link: Read the manga (http://www.mangareader.net/116/full-metal-alchemist.html), watch the anime series (http://www.funimation.com/fullmetal-alchemist)

Fullmetal Alchemist is a Japanese anime series that circles around the lives of two orphan brothers (Elric brothers) who are alchemists and must fight the bad alchemists.

Just who the bad alchemists are? In the Inferno, Dante is not seen as the creator of the sins, but an observer.  Currently, it seems like his main purpose of the Inferno is to present the corruption and sinful nature in humanity and the Church through philosophical, political and religious ideologies. He is just exposing the rest of the world (and possibly enlightening himself) about the evil and that life should not be like this. A possible reason for why Dante goes through his journey in the Comedy is to show him that he has the potential to overcome the evil in the world, more specifically, the evil within his Florentine society and he must not succumb to the temptation pride, avarice and envy that gotten his fellow Florentines in Hell.

            However, in the manga series, there is a character named Dante who is the creator of the seven homunculi. A homunculus is an object that is representation of a human being and in the manga, the homunculi have super-human abilities, but do not have a soul. This is a direct contrast to the individuals in the Inferno since they have souls, nevertheless, dead souls. They were never alive and so they can never die (or can they…read the magna/watch the anime to find out). The seven homunculi represent the seven deadly sins in Christianity. These sins are represented in each circle in Hell with most of the sins being part of an individual circle or multiple circles. The use of the seven homunculi is not show the world evils of humanity, like Dante does in the Inferno, but to spread more evil into the world and make human life unbearable through constant oppression. There is an episode in the anime series titled, “Dante of the Deep Forest,” which is a direct allusion to the opening canto in the Inferno when Dante enters the dark forest. It is in the dark forest where Dante also encounters the three beasts, she-wolf, lion and the leopard. Dante might not have physically gone into battle with the beasts, but the beasts do represent important symbols for the inferno, which are pride, avarice, and envy. However, in the episode, the Elric brothers find out about Dante and her creation of the homunculi (although there is a plot twist that concerns the Elric brothers and the homunculi) through their battle with two homunculi, Envy and Greed. The Elric brothers do not have victory over the homunculi as Dante does in the Inferno when he does not succumb to the temptation of the sins.

            There are more connections between Fullmental Alchemist and Purgatorio and I will add commentary on that when the class reaches Purgatorio.   

Botticelli, Illustration of Canto 18, the Eighth Circle of Hell

In Botticelli's image it is possible to see the colors that Dante described of the scene in Canto 18, in the first subdivision of the eighth circle, where the pimps/panders and seducers are punished.  Dante describes the scene as “made of stone the color of iron” (Canto 18, ll. 1-2).  He also describes the layout: “from the base of the cliff, bridges moved that cut across the banks and the ditches, as far as the pit that truncates and gathers them in” (ll. 16-18).  Botticelli’s interpretation of these passages show Dante and Virgil walking across the jagged rock, dressed in brilliant blue, purple, and red robes, while everything else in the scene is (as Dante writes) “the color of iron” – dark grey, with a tinge of rust in places. Botticelli depicts the punishment of the pimps/panders and seducers in the first ditch, which Dante describes: “here and there, along the dark rock, I saw horned demons with great whips who were beating them from behind” (ll. 34-36).  Dante describes the souls as naked.  Botticelli depicts the horror on their faces, as they scramble to run from the demons that whip them.  And so they go, round and round for eternity, which is the punishment.

Of all the illustrations of scenes in Inferno, I chose this picture for a number of reasons: 1) it is one of the earlier illustrations of the scene, being drawn by Botticelli at the end of the 15^th century (according to the link, between c. 1480 and c. 1495).  2)  Botticelli, like Dante, was a Florentine, and lived approximately 200 years after Dante.  This gave him a sort of closeness to the text and the author that many artists did not have who lived in later times and various places.  3) Botticelli’s paintings are the only paintings I have found that depict a “time line” of progression in the painting.  One notices that there are multiple figures in the painting of the description I provided above – even 12!  Looking closely however, it is clear that Botticelli is depicting Virgil and Dante as they progress past the first two ditches of the eighth circle.  This makes it possible to paint them with multiple expressions – the first figure of Dante has his hands in the air, looking terrified.  In the fourth picture of Dante (after crossing the first bridge) he has his hand over his face, perhaps plugging his nose because of the stench of dung in the pit below: “The banks were encrusted with a mold” Dante writes, “from the breath from below that condenses there, which assailed both eyes and nose…there we came; and from there I saw, down in the ditch, people immersed in dung that seemed to have come from human privies.” (ll. 106-108, 112-114). 

Punishment of the Panderers and Seducers and the Flatterers

http://www.worldofdante.org/pop_up_query.php?dbid=I047&show=more  

Divine Comedy- The music

Link: http://www.thedivinecomedy.com/index.php this is the musician's website, though he is also on iTunes and has a Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Divine-Comedy/288798654027)  Here is another link to the song I referenced on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgsuAUuMxFw

        While browsing my iTunes library I had the idea to search "Divine Comedy" and see what would come up- if there where songs composed about Dante's work- and I came across this musician who calls himself the Divine Comedy. His actual name is Neil Hannon. Hannon is a British song writer who appears to have his own record label, also entitled Divine Comedy. I was wondering what this seemingly random British guy had to do with the Divine Comedy, so I listened to a few of his songs and looked at his lyrics.
        One song that stands out to me in particular is entitled "Down In The Street Below". The lyrics invoke images and allusions to Dante's Inferno. "Climb the darkened stairwell" and "to slip beneath the shadows of the bedroom blinds" both made me think of the theme of light in Dante's Inferno and like the Inferno this scene in Hannon's song is depicted as dark and getting darker as it continues. When he sings "beneath the shadows" it made me think of Dante's term "shades" to describe the souls of the dead, and to go beneath them is like the image of Dante traveling through hell. He also has a line in the same song "you just don't know whether you're doing it for the right reasons" which obviously brings up the questions of morals and implies that he may not be using good morals to make decisions, and perhaps he is sinning like those in the Inferno. I like that Hannon is using a different form of poetry, music, which can reflect themes in the Divine Comedy. I also think it makes a difference having the music attached to his thoughtful lyrics. I don't think he focuses only on the Divine Comedy, but as all song-writers do, he uses a lot of his personal experience, but it seems that most of his songs reflect some part of the Comedy.
       This song is pretty soft and starts out slow, although parts of it become faster. The rhythm of the song matches the pace of Dante's descent into hell, starting out slowly in the first two cantos, speeding up through the first five circles of hell, and then slowing down again as he gets further into hell/the song. His voice also reflects this descent in that his voice starts out high pitched, and then when he speeds up his voice lowers an octave- literally getting deeper, again like Dante going down into hell.
       While personally I'm not a huge fan of how the music sounds put together, I do think it is really interesting that Hannon, regardless of whether or not he chose to, focuses his songs around the works of Dante and make all these connections through a different form of art. Perhaps it is because the Divine Comedy truly has a timeless message about human nature to the point where most of life's experiences can apply to it. Since he is a modern artist, his songs also bring a contemporary connection through his lyrics and sound style, which I also think is pretty cool. A last thing that I noticed and got a kick out of is that his fan page is called "the inner circle" (can be found through his webpage).

Dante's influence on T.S. Eliot

Link: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/18993 here you can view the full text of the poem

Entry: Upon reading Canto three of Dante's Inferno, I immediately noticed lines 55-56: "I should never have believed death had undone so many". I knew exactly where I had heard it before. T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" borrows Dante's line almost directly in lines 60-63: "Unreal city, under the brown fog of a winter dawn, a crowd flowed over the London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many". I knew when reading Eliot's poem that this was a reference to someone at sometime, because Eliot was so careful to keep large notes to accompany his masterpiece. I had not paid much attention to where Eliot took this line from at the time, but now that I am reading Dante it is as if I cannot forget the line in terms of either text. The words ring in my head as both beautiful and foreboding; it is easy to see why Eliot borrowed them. It is also very easy to see other similarities in this small section of lines. In the Inferno, Dante describes entering hell, and also describes people thronging en mass to cross the Acheron. This scene in canto three is similar to Eliot's image of an "unreal" city as that which is hell like, in the sense that hell is not a place on earth, but of a different realm. And Eliot's note of London Bridge crowded with people is similar to that of the crowd gathering to cross the river in the comedy.

In line 64 of the Waste Land, Eliot includes another note referring to Dante's Inferno. He quotes lines 25-26 of canto four that say: "Here, as far as could be heard, there was no weeping/ except sighs which caused the eternal air to tremble". Line 64 of the Waste Land reads "Sighs, short and infrequent were exhaled". The sighing that occurs in the Inferno is that of those in Limbo. Because they are in a state of constant suspension, they sigh from want of a place that is at peace; they are in hell, yet not really in a way, and they are certainly not in heaven. This type of longing is what Eliot wanted to replicate in his poem. The citizens of London are indifferent to the world around them, living without passion, and in a state of constant longing. The European world wants truth or beauty to believe in and hold on to, but never actually finds any such thing. Similarly, the scholars that are in Canto four's limbo sought intellectual truth, but never reached the ultimate truth of God, and thus are also in a state of longing for their lack of faith.

In addition, while discussing in class Dante's many landscapes I distinctly remember our professor calling certain areas "wastelands". Eliot's entire motif for his poem is that the post world war one Europe is a wasteland - destroyed and barren. This wasteland is empty or any truth or true beauty, which is very reminiscent to hell's position away from the beautiful city of God. Just like the Comedy is organized into canto and circles of punishments, Eliot's poem is organized in sections that focus on specific elements of certain types of life. For example, the scene of part one is that of London Bridge, while section two depicts the fancy living of a gentlewoman. Not only is the act of division scene in both texts, but both Eliot and Dante are master's of working what they perceive as the social norms and ills of their day. Both works are encyclopedic in their references, and thus provide such please for scholars and students alike.

Dante's Inferno Fashion

Link: The link to many Dante's Inferno T-shirts can be found here...http://www.zazzle.com/dantes+inferno+tshirts

The other day, I was wondering what ways Dante's Inferno has been used in modern culture. Many people have profited from Inferno, whether it be by means of creating a film or video game, but I wondered if Dante ever thought that one day people would be making and wearing clothing after what he had written. There are many articles of clothing out there that use imagery and texts from Dante's Inferno as a fashion symbol. Whether it be T-shirts, sweaters, coats, etc...If there is a way, it has most likely been done. 

Even the tone of Dante's Inferno is played with in clothing, as it is used in either serious ways, straight from the work itself, or it is used out of context as a joke or simply a cool design or motto. The clothing is an off-beat and different way to express Dante's Inferno. The shirts in the link show Dante's Inferno as something very grim and hell-like, but also something very artistic and meaningful, which I believe Dante intended as well.

Phillip Pullman's Amber Spyglass and Dante's Commedia

Title: Boats and Rivers

Link: The book is in the Level B Stacks of Rush Rhee

Although The Amber Spyglass is explicitly anti-religion, Phillip Pullman draws a lot of material from the Commedia in his chapters of the underworld.  According to the acknowledgements, Pullman drew heavily from Paradise Lost, and Milton drew heavily on the Commedia.

The world of the dead has an area where people must wait until they are ready to cross the river.  This area resembles the shores of ante-Purgatory since these people cannot return to the living, nor can they advance to the dead in the same way that the souls on ante-Purgatory cannot advance to Heaven, nor can they return to life and correct their mistakes.  However, these people are living who stumbled in from life (it's not clearly explained how that happens).   

Like Charon, the boatman is impossibly ancient with an oar and refuses to ferry the living unless they leave behind their animal representations of life.  Here, Dante and Pullman separate because the protagonists temporarily lose their representations of life whereas Dante presumably conquers his cowardice before crossing Acheron.  As the boatman ferries across the river, he refers to popes and kings who refused to believe that they died.  This is a bit similar to the soul in Canto 27 who believed he would go to Heaven only to have a demon thwart his salvation.

Unlike the Inferno, Pullman’s underworld is a bleak wasteland.  The harpies in The Amber Spyglass parallel the Furies at the Tower of Dis and the harpies in the wood of suicides in that the antagonists harass the protagonists in both stories.  The antagonists in both stories fail to cow the protagonists, but they subdue other souls, much like how the poets resist until the Angel arrives, but the harpies shred Iacopo in the wood of suicides.  In both stories, the harpies and Furies block the entrance to the underworld proper, but the protagonists force their way into the underworld. 

The souls in Pullman’s story resemble the souls of Purgatory in that both marvel at life such as Dante’s shadow or the protagonists’ warm bodies in a cold world.  The stories the protagonists share with the dead are like the conversations Dante has with the souls in the afterlife.  The conversations tend to focus on what was important to the dead when they were alive, such as nature or fame.  

The harpies guide the living protagonists through the underworld to a place where the underworld meets the surface.  Pullman adapts Virgil to the harpies, giving the harpies the ability to see through deception and guide the protagonists through the underworld.  The last word of the underworld arc ends with stars, just like how each canticle ends with stars, suggesting a new hope or future for the protagonists and Dante.

This is one of my favorite books, and connecting what I read years ago with other literature makes me want to reread other books.  Although fewer people read Purgatorio and Paradiso of the Commedia, their influences still tug on generations of authors. Contrary to what naysayers of humanities insist, the Commedia’s enduring power shows that it is alive and relevant.