Rachel Lopez, “Why Dante, 700 years later, is still a hell of a journey,” Hindustan Times (2021)

A brief overview of Dante’s influence and impact on the arts and on people all over the world, and notes our own Dante Today:

“Close your eyes and think of hell. It doesn’t matter if you’re not Christian and have never read the Bible. Chances are you’re imagining an actual place. A medieval-era underworld. Rotting, flaming, red. Full of writhing bodies, pain and punishment. It’s not pretty – it’s not supposed to be. But if there’s really an afterlife, then Dante Alighieri, who died 700 years ago, is probably out there thinking, ‘Mission accomplished’.

“The poem’s influences are so wide and far-ranging that three American universities have collaborated on a website to keep track of them all. Since 2006, Dante Today has been archiving every present-day reference to the poem, through ‘sightings’ and ‘citings’. They’re pretty thorough, even adding a hot-sauce brand called 10th Circle to their archive last month.” [. . .]    –Rachel Lopez, Hindustan Times, February 20, 2021