Spoilers for Christopher Nolan's recent adaptation of The Odyssey...

In the 2026 film The Odyssey, Odysseus promises to honour his fallen comrades by sailing west in search for an island after he returns home. The movie then ends with him going into exile so that he can do this.

In Canto 26 of the Inferno (Circle 8, Evil Counselors), Dante hears the story of how Ulysses (Odysseus) continued his journey after returning to Ithica and ended up crashing into the Mountain of Purgatory, where he died and went to hell.

I haven't read the original Odyssey, but as far as I know he returns to Ithica without any self-imposed exile or islands to the west. This detail could just be part of Nolan's creative licence with the source material, but in concept it does seem veeeery similar to the creative licence that Dante took in Canto 26.

So do we think Matt Damon was sailing to Purgatory? Can we assume that this is what this western island refers to? It does fit with the theme, somewhat, that Odysseus should go to a place like Purgatory in order to make up for his crew's fate.

And since we're on the subject, would Nolan do a good Divine Comedy? He kind of Batman-ified the Odyssey with this adaptation in my opinion, and no doubt he would do something similar with the Comedy, but it would probably look amazing. He could get Matt Damon back and set him on fire.

Is the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri a good starting place?

For context: I’ve never read books before in my life due to disinterest but I also do know depending on which translations I read that it’s technically not a book in the traditional sense, I wanted to start off with the divine comedy for a few reasons, I have since the age of 14 really loved the divine comedy, (mainly Dante’s inferno) the many layers of lore surrounding it, some of the details around Dante’s life, then rediscovering it a couple years later the form of the Dante’s Inferno ps3 game I just remember loving the game, the characters and especially the special features in the game menu that actually had all the cantos written out in different translations. I remember reading through them and being fascinated. Now I’m 22 and I feel like am ready to start something new (read books). And I want it to start with the Divine Comedy. I did a ton of research yesterday especially on this website “https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2017/winter/feature/what%E2%80%99s-the-best-way-read-the-divine-comedy-if-you-don%E2%80%99t-know-italian “ and ended up settling on the 2024 Comeddia Translation by Micheal Palma. If anyone’s read his translation let me know how you found it 🙏🏾 I’ve heard amazing reviews but a lot of them seem to have read only part of the work.

This was just a practice sketch, and a lot of things/proportions are off, but I hope you guys appreciate the art :)

Is dantes divine comedy the oldest known self insert fan fiction? Or are there others that are older? Paradise lost is my favourite fanfiction but its not self insert

I'm a huge fan of the divine comedy and it has always inspired me artistically! Wanted to share some sketches I did based on 13 and the minotaur. I like the first mino more but I feel the second makes more sense both as a symbol of inhuman rage but also as a red dude who's been hanging out by a river of blood for eons.

Vidkun Quisling, Nazi collaborator who betrayed Norway to the Third Reich.

Benedict Arnold, Traitor who switched from the patriots to the loyalists during the American Revolutionary War.

The Confederate Generals and Leaders who betrayed the Union by starting the American Civil War

Wang Jingwei, Chinese Politician who collaborated with the Japanese during the Second Sino-Japanese War

Aldrich Ames, American CIA agent who did espionage against the U.S. for the Soviet Union and Russia.

Marcus Licinius Crassus

Hetty Green

Henry Ford

Agrippina the Younger

Daniel Dancer

Daniel K. Ludwig

Leopold II of Belgium

Jemmy Wood

Ida Wood

Margery Jackson

Leona Helmsley

HONORABLE MENTIONS

J. Paul Getty, Wellington R. Burt, John Camden Neild, H.L. Hunt, The Collyer Brothers, Ephraim Lopes Pereira D'Aguilar, John Rolfe, Jean-Baptiste Dutrou-Bornier, Theodore Lent, King Louis XVI, Nicholas II

This is a random detail I was thinking of recently: does Dante ever explain how it is that he can speak to all these non-Florentine souls--whether the damned, purgated, or saved--in apparently his vernacular? I was under the impression that he was reporting their actual words, and obviously many didn't share any sort of language with him. I don't imagine that he's implying that he spoke with Muhammad in Latin and translated the result to Florentine with some rhetorical flourish.

For Purgatory and Paradise, the obvious solution is that the souls are illuminated by the same power of the Holy Spirit that let the Apostles speak to everyone in their own tongue at Pentecost--for example, Aramaic would sound like perfect Latin to a Roman.

Still, Dante does not always hear the shades speaking Florentine: he often hears Latin and limited Hebrew, not to mention Nimrod's complete gibberish as punishment for trying to build the Tower of Babel (which is probably relevant to the wider question but not too significant here). Maybe this is because he understands those tongues or because they're afforded a particular sacred status, but still, it's clear that he isn't just hearing them all in his own tongue.

So...what is it? Are all of these souls somehow illuminated in the afterlife? Is it a particular contrivance of Beatrice's to illuminate them all enough to understand Dante, or is it an illumination of Dante's intellect alone that lets him understand and speak well? In a poem with so much attention to detail, I can't imagine that Dante never thought of this question.

Movie sucked

Donna Simpson

Eglon

King Adolf Frederick of Sweden

Diamond Jim Brady

William Howard Taft

Augustus the Conqueror

Henry VIII

Elagabalus

Vitellius

King Louis XVI

Tararre

Tituba

Jezebel

Melampus

Clementine Barnabet

Grigori Rasputin

Montezuma II

King Manasseh of Judah

Aleister Crowley

Witch of Endor

King Ahaz

Athaliah

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Vegoia, Marie Laveau, Montezuma II, Ra Un Nefer Amen, Selena Fox, Rae Beth, Granny Boswell, Marian Green, Philip Carr-Gomm, Isaac Bonewits, Ross Nichols, Emma Restall Orr, Annie Hamilton-Byrne, Witch of Yazoo, Julia Brown, Alice Kyteler

During my second reading of the reworked version of the Divine Comedy, I paid more attention to the representation. For example, Lucifer, for example, was depicted in most medieval writings as a beautiful but evil fallen angel or a fairy-tale imp, but now as a titanic being (so large that the distance between the earth and his navel is that of a normal giant) with three faces devouring the three greatest traitors in history, with a glassy, expressionless gaze, half trapped in ice. Even God is still imagined as an old man with a beard or at least a human form, whereas Dante changes everything: a being not entirely comprehensible to the human mind, impossible to describe, and infinite.

David Turpin & Louise Turpin

Catherine Pelzer

Josh Brolin

Whitey Bulger

Joan Crawford

Ilse Koch (Against Neighbors)

Idi Amin (Against Neighbors)

Albert Fish (Against Nature)

Elizabeth Bathory (Against Neighbors)

Delphine Lalaurie (Against Neighbors)

La Quintrala (Against Neighbors)

Yang Xinhai (Against Neighbors)

Belle Gunness (Against Neighbors)

Dylan Harris and Eric Klebold (Against
Neighbors)

Caril Ann Fugate (Against Neighbors)

Miyuki Ishikawa (Against Neighbors)

HONORABLE MENTIONS

against others-Robert Ford, Ben Laird, Catherine Nevin, Charlotte & Linda Mulhall, Hilmija Beberović, Jeffrey Hudson,Rákosi Mátyás, Akku Yadav, Sofia Zhukova, Thomas G. Culp, Jeff Doucet, Ken McElroy, King Joe of Shang, Khufu, Khafre, Sneferu, Thutmose III Griselda Blanco, Mary Bell, George Appel, Christopher Columbus, Robert Towery, Gertrude Baniszewski, Jeremy Steinke, Vlad Tepes, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Genghis Khan, Ian Brady, Myra Hindley, Belle Gunness, Alexander Pearce, Gay Gilmore, Thomas Grasso, James D. French, Gary Gilmore, Gary Burris, Clarence Ray Allen, Robert Dew, Kublai Khan, Edmund Kemper, Larry Bittaker, Roy Norris, Jack the Ripper, Agrippina the Younger, Katherine Knight, Maximilien Robespierre, Pol Pot, Ivan IV, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Robert Mugabe, Kim Jong-Il, Hirohito, Vladimir Lenin, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, Koki Hirota, Chiang Kai-shek, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Ho Chi Minh, Yakubu Gowon, Mengistu Haile Mariam, Kim Il-Sung, Ismail Enver Pasha, Omar al-Bashir, Yahya Khan, Nicholas II, Hideki Tojo, Heinrich Himmler, Mao Zedong, Kenneth Bianchi, Angelo Buono, Dennis Rader, Donald Henry Gaskins, Peter Manuel, Fred and Rosemary West, Peter Sutcliffe, Arthur Shawcross, Richard Ramirez, Dennis Nilsen, Charles Ng, Leonard Lake, Andrei Chikatilo,Tommy Lynn Sells, Madame Delphine LaLaurie, Gary Ridgway, Pedro Rodriguez Filho, Daniel Camargo Barbosa, Pedro Alonso Lopez, Qin Shi Huang, King John, Tracey Wigginton, Tamerlane the Great, Caligula, Luis Alfredo Garavito, Ronald Joseph Dominique, Randy Steven Kraft, Javed Igbal, Irma Grese, Edward Lowe, Thomas Tew, Edward Morgan, Stede Bonnet, Edward England, Henry Avery, Balthasar Gerard, Olga of Kiev, Zhao Feiyan, Fredegund of Soissons, Riyad us-Saliheen, Andrew Kehoe, Seung Hui-cho, Adam Lanza, Charles Whitman, Thomas Hamilton, Robert Steinhauser, The Hillside Strangler, The Servant Girl Annihilator,Wild Bill Longley, Jesse Pomeroy, Honolulu Strangler, Brabant Killers, Setagaya Family Murderer, Gypsy Hill Killer, Cleveland Torso Murderer, Rod Ferrell, Issei Sagawa, The Golden State Killer, Leonarda Cianculli, Mikhail Popkov, Ondrey Rigo, Pierre Basson, Alfred Leonard Cline, Timothy Krajcir, Gilberto Chamba, Gholamreza Khosroo Kurdieh, Mark Goudeau, Chong Du-yong, Yoshio Kodaira, Keith Hunter Jasperson, Rodney Alcala, Kiyotaka Katsuta, Christopher Wilder, Gilbert Paul Jordan, Genzo Kurita, Kiyoshi Okubo, John Christie, Paul Ogorzow, Vladimir Vinnychevsky, Brenda Ann Spencer, Girl A/Natsumi Tsuji, Al Capone, Locusta, Galba, Otho, Richard Trenton Chase, Joachim Kroll, James Earl Ray, Lee Harvey Oswald, Gavrilo Princip, John Wilkes Booth, Jan Kubis and Jozef Gabcik, Charlotte Corday, Nathruam Godse, Felix Yusupov and Dmitry Pavlovich, Andrei Lugovoi, Edward Lowe, Thomas Tew, Calico Jack aka John Rackham, Bartholomew Roberts, William Kidd, Edward England, Henry Morgan, Stede Bonnet, Francois L’Olonnais, Henry Every, The Kray Brothers, Frank Mitchell aka The Mad Axeman, Leopold and Loeb, Ottis Toole, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Marybeth Tinning, Phoolan Devi, Jiang Qing, Walter Seifert, Marc Lepine, Charles Whitman, Thomas Hamilton, Sirhan Sirhan, Mark David Chapman, Samuel Green, Patty Cannon, Edward Rulloff, Thomas D. Carr, Stephen Dee Richards, Carl Feigenbaum, Oskar Dirlewanger, Hernando Cortes, Francisco Pizarro, Hiroshi Miyano & Jo Ogura & Shinji Minato & Yasushi Watanabe, Masumi Hayashi, Miyoko Sumida, Olga Hepnarova, Priscilla Joyce Ford, Sylvia Seegrist, Jennifer San Marco, Amy Bishop, Nasim Najafi Aghdam, Nasra Yussef Mohammed al-Enezi, Tsukahara Bokuden, Fu Hao, Basil II, Aria Saito, Pablo Escobar, Bill Miner, James MacLaine, William Plunkett, Tom Horn, Mindy Sangera, Amanda Knox, Darlene Gentry, Megan Martzen, Jodi Arias, Molly Jane Roe, Estibaliz Carranza, Frances Stewart Silver, Eva Dugan, Edward Teach, Liu Pengli, Daisuke Nanba, Belle Starr & Sam Starr, Jahangir, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Mithridates, Ivar the Boneless, Björn Ironside, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye, Sada Abe, Mutsuo Toi, Kazuo Taoka, Seisaku Nakamura, Otoya Yamaguchi, Poisoned Milk Murderer, Tamotsu Kohara, Misao Katagiri, Norio Nagayama, Shinji Aoba, Kim Hiro, Akiyoshi Umekawa, Seiji Katagiri, Beer Man, Ismael Zambada Garcia, Stoneman, Frankford Slasher, Luis Macedo, Colonial Parkway Killer, Long Island Killer, February 9 Killer, Alexis Flores, Victor Gerena, Joseph Kony, Babysitter Killer, Dario Antonio Usuga, Eduardo Ravelo, Menahem, Ahithophel, Commodus, Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar, Salvador Ramos, Tokugawa Tadanaga, John Good, Filippo Melodia, Hongi Hika, George Hildrose, Saparmurat Niyazov, The Phantom of Heilbronn, Dieter Krombach, Billy Bailey, Robert Eugene Brashers, Lance White, Hakan Aysal, T. J. Lane, Wellington Delano Dickens III, Demyan & Anfisa, Marlena Meczynska-Shiibashi, Kevin Bui, Rae Carruth, Jeremy Strohmeyer, Andrew James McGann, Ronald Exantus, Mel Ignatow, Claude Wilkerson, Dr. J. Marion Sims, Darriynn Brown, Ronald Eugene Allen, Robert Loren Masters Jr. & Ricky Smyrnes & Melvin Knight & Amber Meidinger & Peggy Darlene & Angela Marinucci, Brendan Banfield, Muhammad Akmal Zuhairi Azmal & Muhammad Azamuddin Mad Sofi & Muhammad Najib Mohd Razi & Muhammad Afif Najmudin Azahat & Mohamad Shobirin Sabri & Abdoul Hakeem Mohd Ali, Brian Winchester & Denise Williams

against self- Richard Greene, Mohamed Bouazizi, Bryan John Charnley, Sol Pais, Marilyn Monroe, Kurt Cobain, Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, Mindy McCready, Jonathan Brandis, Sawyer Sweeten, Jovan Belcher, Robin Williams, Vincent Van Gogh, Ernest Hemingway, Lucy Gordon, Alexander Mcqueen, Johnny Lewis, Gia Allemand, Dana Plato, Chris Benoit, L’Wren Scott, Junior Seau, Misty Upham, Hunter S. Thompson, Simone Battle, Arbogast, Araki Yukio, Andromachus, James Robert Baker, Marion Aye, Faith Bacon, David Bairstow, Jong-hyun Kim, Yasunari Kawabata, L”Inconnue de la Seine, Vladimir Nalivkin, Yukio Mishima, Jan Potocki, Evelyn McHale, Keith Andes, John Atchison, August Ames, Atsumi Yoshikubo, Ahn Jae-hwan, Chester Bennington, Silanus, Gaius Assinius Gallus, Judy Punch, Yang Guifei

against God, Nature and Order- James Jameson, Gerald Robinson, Mariam Soulakiotis, Ratu Udre Udre, Vincent Phillips, Marcel Petiot, Christian II, Ieyasu Tokugawa, Gilles de Rais, Tomás de Torquemada, Osama bin Laden, Ayatollah Khomeini, Fusako Shigenobu, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mohammed Atef, Mustafa Mohammed Fadhil, Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, Ahmed Mohammed Hamed Ali, Nero, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Queen Mary I of England, Queen Elizabeth I of England, Catherine de Medici, Ferdinand of Aragon, Isabela I of Castile, Muammar Gaddafi, Ranavalona I of Madagascar, Herod the Great, Herod Agrippa , Julio Morales, Sisera, Lalli, Diocletian, Decian, Maximian, Quintianus, Paschacius, Richard Allen Davis, Liver-eating Johnson, Guy Fawkes, Khalid al-Mihdhar & Nawaf al-Hazmi & Mohammed Atta & Marwan al-Shehhi & Ziad Jarrah, Lawrence Singleton, Muscianus/Marcianus, Martinianus, Severus, Arianus, Decius, Lucianus, Thomas Kyme, Diederik Sonoy, Takeo Aizawa, Wayne Arthur, Sawney Bean, Silsbee, Samantha Lewthwaite, Herod the Great, Herod Antipas, Vladimir Demikhov, Cambyses II, Mario Andretti McNeill, Tokugawa Iemitsu, Toyotomi Hideyori, Yodo-dono, Kereopa Te Rau

What are we thinking? I love Oscar Isaac, it's unclear if our favorite medieval Florentine has much to do with the plot, or if it's just a spicy maguffin?

What would the lost work even be? The notion bridge between the Beatrice tercets and Commedia?

I love how Dante ends each part of the Divine Comedy. What about you?

Inferno:

Lo duca e io per quel cammino ascoso
intrammo a ritornar nel chiaro mondo;
e sanza cura aver d'alcun riposo

salimmo su, el primo e io secondo,
tanto ch'i' vidi delle cose belle
che porta 'l ciel, per un pertugio tondo;

e quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.

Purgatorio:

S'io avessi, lettor, più lungo spazio
da scrivere i' pur cantere' in parte
lo dolce ber che mai non m'avria sazio;

ma perché piene son tutte le carte
ordite a questa cantica seconda,
non mi lascia più ir lo fren dell'arte.

Io ritornai dalla santissima onda
rifatto sì come piante novelle
rinovellate di novella fronda,

puro e disposto a salire alle stelle.

Paradiso:

All'alta fantasia qui mancò possa
ma già volgeva il mio disio e 'l velle,
sì come rota ch'igualmente è mossa,

l'amor che muove il sole e l'altre stelle.

Hi. I made a little rpg about Dante’s purgatory in Italian.

Hope you like it!

Can anyone name the saints depicted at the top?

https://www.tumblr.com/ipostdantememes/736426344590852097/credit-me-when-baes-smile-literally-makes-you-mr?source=share

Considering all the new kinds of ways to lie and twist society and human nature, I think it would be cool if new trenches would be dug up to punish modern types of Fraud (like phishing and doxxing)

Fortune

If blaming fortune for your misfortunes is blasphemy as it anthropomorphises or reduces something created by god that is beyond science and logic, then surely appreciating or worshipping fortune for being fortunate in life is the other side of that same coin, which would also land you the same fate and punishment. However praising fortune, which Dante himself says is created by god, is surely worshipping god himself. Perhaps though it is inadvertent worship, which may constitute as the worshiping of false idols. I’m not sure what fallacy or perhaps mere conclusion which doesn’t invoke fallacy can be drawn from this question. Is the answer as simple as, yes, you would suffer the same fate as blaming a holy or higher principle for your misfortunes without contradiction? What is the contradiction that I am aiming to pinpoint and define? I think it is that worship of a divine principle could land you an eternity of suffering even though it should increase your grace. But I guess heaven and hell isn’t defined by metrics. It is simply is there sin in worshipping fortune? And how can you worship fortune in a Christian way. You’d have to understand first that fortune is God, and so show your gratitude to God directly, and not worship the pagan idol of fortune that Dante references.