Abstract
In 2010, the American graphic designer Seymour Chwast (New York, °1931) published Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Graphic Adaptation, which condenses Dante’s masterpiece into 127 pages. Previous scholarship has mainly focused on how Chwast adapts the Comedy and the specific passages he chooses to include. Chwast has been viewed as just one of many interpreters within a long tradition of Dante adaptations. However, we argue that Chwast possibly introduces a new chapter in this tradition. Specifically, he diverges from two types of Dante illustrators. Firstly, he surpasses illustrators who subordinate their work to Dante’s literary text and who simply depict images and characters from the book to visually represent and explain the text. Secondly, he deviates from artists who engage with Dante as equals, creating a work of art with double authorship, e.g., Gustave Doré. Chwast moves beyond Dante and engages primarily with American pop culture, particularly its cinematic tradition and comic books, rather than with Dante. The same process can be observed in Chwast’s other literary adaptations. Hence, in this paper, we mainly focus on Chwast’s adaptation of the Divine Comedy within the artist’s broader Americanisation of European literature. The key aspect of this process is Chwast’s cultural appropriation, wherein the literary sources disappear to make room for 20th-century American pop culture. As a result, the significance of the relation with the sources diminishes in comparison to Chwast’s main goal of representing European literature from his own American viewpoint and appealing to an American readership.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Sarah Bonciarelli (Ghent University) interviewed Chwast via e-mail between January 18 and 22, 2021. We are wholeheartedly grateful to her for kindly letting us use this interview.
The relationship between illustrators and Dante’s text has evolved over the centuries, starting with 14th-century visual commentaries and reaching the co-authorship of the late 18th century (with John Flaxman, William Blake, Gustave Doré, Salvador Dalí). On this topic, see Collins (2016) and de Rooy (2017). On the persistence of Doré’s model, see at least the most recent studies: Audeh (2009); Marin (2015); Amendola and Tirino (2016).
“Dante plays himself as he travels to the other side with classical poet Virgil. They, and the other characters are depicted in 1930’s dress. I meant Dante to look like a Dashiell Hammett detective, searching for the truth. The Dante character looks for answers unseeable to mere mortals, by traveling respectively, to Hell, Purgatory and Paradise.” Chwast (2011a).
For Rauschenberg’s illustrations of Dante see: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/series/36719.
For a more extensive discussion of Rauschenberg’s Inferno, see Smith (2016).
In order of appearance: Desdemona and Othello (Othello, Shakespeare), Pygmalion and Galatea (Metamorphoses, Ovid), Samson and Delilah (Bible), Ivanhoe and Rowena (Ivanhoe, Scott), Porgy and Bess (Porgy and Bess, Heyward), Tarzan and Jane (Tarzan of the Apes, Burroughs), Martha and Karen (The Children’s House, Hellman), Vilthuril and Fiver (Watership Down, Adams), David and John (John’s Room, Baldwin), Romeo and Juliet (Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare), Psyche and Cupid (The Metamorphoses, Apuleius), Sula and Jude (Sula, Morrison), Leopold Bloom and Molly Bloom (Ulysses, Joyce), Medea and Jason (Medea, Euripides), Newland Archer and Countess Olenska (The Age of Innocence, Wharton), Mr. Rochester (no name is given for the female figure, Jane Eyre, the most immediate reference is obviously Brontë’s eponymous book, however Shoemaker’s Mr. Rochester also appears in 2017), Don Juan and Doña Ana (Don Juan Tenorio, José Zorrilla).
Presented as follows in the captions: “Tom Joad, Jay Gatsby, The Illustrated Man, Mother Courage, Ethan Frome, Jane Eyre, Kunta Kinte, Babbitt, Dorian Gray, The wife of Bath, Hester Prynne, Mrs. Dalloway, Rip Van Winkle, Carrie, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Lassie, Moll Flanders, Dr. Faustus, Capt. Ahab.”
Brutus (Julius Caesar, Shakespeare), Bob Ewell (To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee), Prof. Moriarty (The Final Problem, Conan Doyle), Rodya (Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky), Nurse Ratched (One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey), Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs, Harris), Shark (Jaws, Benchley), Simone Legree (Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Beecher Stowe), Mrs. Danvers (Rebecca, du Maurier), Annie Wilkes (Misery, King), Count Orlok (the caption indicates Nosferatu, but the book is Dracula, Bram Stoker), Haman (The Bible), Uriah Heep (David Copperfield, Dickens), Iago (Othello, Shakespeare), Cyclops (The Odyssey, Homer), Tom Ripley (The Talented Mr. Ripley, Highsmith), Lady Macbeth (Macbeth, Shakespeare), Big Brother (1984, Orwell), Lucifer (The Divine Comedy, Dante), Capt. Hook (Peter Pan, Barrie).
We do not agree with Paladin’s reading, which states that “the dense synthesis of the cantos” offers a condensation of the “allegorical meanings” of Dante’s text. (Paladin, 2016).
For an exhaustive list of films inspired (also remotely) by Dante, see https://www.danteeilcinema.com/. The long-lasting fascination of the film industry with Dante’s Divine Comedy begins exactly in the USA, with the 1907 film Francesca da Rimini by William V. Ranous. On the relation between Hollywood and Dante, see Iannucci, 2004. See also Colonnese Benni (1999).
Another interesting similarity with the American comic trends should also be noted: “contemporary American Dante comics from the past decade systematically mould the protagonist of the sacred poem into a contemporary American hero, making him the embodiment of different but very recognisable masculine stereotypes” (de Rooy, 2017, 108).
The examples mentioned by de Rooy, include Nick Tosches, In the Hand of Dante (2002); Matthew Pearl, The Dante Club (2003); David Fincher, Se7en (1995); Ridley Scott, Hannibal (2001) (de Rooy, 2017, 104).
References
Aletta, A. (2020). From the dark wood to the asphalt jungle: Adaptation and appropriation in Detective Dante. Between, 10(20), 267–299. https://doi.org/10.13125/2039-6597/4220.
Alighieri, D., & Milton, G. (1999). Dante Alighieri. La Divina Commedia. Il Purgatorio di Milton Glaser. Nuages.
Amendola, A., & Tirino, M. (2016). Il filtro di Dante. L’impronta di Gustave Doré dal cinema muto al digitale. Dante e l’arte, 3, 11–38. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/dea.66.
Audeh, A. (2009). Gustave Doré’s illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy: Innovation, influence, and reception. In K. Fugelso (Ed.), Studies in medievalism XVIII: Defining medievalism(s) II (pp. 125–164). Boydell & Brewer.
Awan, J. (2010, November 12). Seymour Chwast’s Divine Comedy. The New Yorker. Retrieved June 1, 2023, from https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/seymour-chwasts-divine-comedy.
Baroni, D., & Vitta, M. (2010). Storia del design grafico. VI. Longanesi.
Bedarida, R., Colombo, D., & Bignami, S. (2020). Introduction. In R. Bedarida, D. Colombo, & S. Bignami (Eds.), Italian modern art, 3. Special Issue, Methodologies of exchange: MoMA’s ‘twentieth-century Italian art (1949)’, 1–16. Retrieved June 1, 2023 from https://www.italianmodernart.org/journal/articles/introduction-3/.
Casadei, A. (2020). Impermeabile e pipa. Il poeta (ri)disegnato. La Lettura - Corriere della sera. March, 15, 27.
Chwast, S. (2010). Dante’s Divine Comedy: a graphic adaptation. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Chwast, S. (2011a, May 25). Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’ as graphic novel by Seymour Chwast. Huffpost, First published September 2, 2010. Retrieved June 1, 2023 from www.huffpost.com/entry/post_b_702331.
Chwast, S. (2011b). Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury tales. Adapted by Seymour Chwast. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Chwast, S. (2012). Homer. The Odyssey. Adapted by Seymour Chwast. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Chwast, S. (2014). Mark Twain. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s court. Adapted by Seymour Chwast. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Chwast, S. (2019a, March 22). From Jay Gatsby to Kunta Kinte. The legendary graphic designer, Seymour Chwast, draws some of his favorite protagonists. The New York Times. Retrieved June 1, 2023 from www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/books/review/seymour-chwast-protagonists.html.
Chwast, S. (2019b, October 24). Need costume ideas? Check out literature’s favorite bad guys, scary women and diabolical creatures. The New York Times. Retrieved June 1, 2023 from www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/books/review/Villains-Seymour-Chwast.html.
Chwast, S. (2020, February 13). Matches made between the covers. The New York Times. Retrieved June 1, 2023 from www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/books/review/Literary-Lovers-Seymour-Chwast.html.
Collins, M. (2016). Subverting authority in illustrations of Dante’s Commedia. Journal of Illustration, 3(2), 173–192. https://doi.org/10.1386/jill.3.2.173_1.
Colonnese Benni, V. (1999). Dante nel cinema. Dal muto al digitale. Retrieved June 1, 2023 from https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/handle/1807/13300.
de Rooy, R. (2017). Divine comics. European Comic Art, 10(1), Spring–94. https://doi.org/10.3167/eca.2017.100108.
Di Paolo, P. (2020, January 18). Dante. Robinson La Repubblica, 42–43.
Emerson, H., & Jackson, K. (2012). Dante’s Inferno. Knockabou.
Fugelso, K. (2011, January 28). Film noir meets medieval monument: Seymour Chwast’s adaptation of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Medievally speaking. Retrieved June 1, 2023 from http://medievallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2011/01/chwast-dantes-divine-comedy-graphic.html.
Glaser, M. (2004). Ambiguity and truth. Delivered at the AIGA brand identity conference, June 21. Retrieved June 1, 2023 from https://www.miltonglaser.com/milton/c:essays/#1.
Hölter, A., & Hölter, E. (2012). Dante Im Comic. In M. Schmitz-Emans (Ed.), Comic und Literatur: Konstellationen (pp. 17–49). De Gruyter.
Iannucci, A. A. (2004). Dante and Hollywood. In A. A. Iannucci (Ed.), Dante, cinema, and television (pp. 3–20). University of Toronto.
Marin, I. (2015). Dante’s hell envisioned by Gustav Doré: An overlooked opening to modernity. IJCCSEC, 4(1), 8–18.
Meier, M. (2013). Das Inferno. Frei Nach Dante Alighieri. Rotopol.
Nagai, G. (1994–1995). Dante Shinkyoku. Komikkusu.
Nuvoli, G. (Ed.). Dante e il Cinema. https://www.danteeilcinema.com/.
Paladin, N. (2016). Push pin Dante: La Divina commedia reinterpretata da Seymour Chwast. Arabeschi, 7(January-June). Retrieved June 1, 2023 from http://www.arabeschi.it/4-fra-illustrazione-e-graphic-novel-42-push-pin-dante-la-divina-commedia-reinterpretata-da-seymour-chwast/.
Pugh, T., & Weisl, A. J. (2013). A case study of Dante. In T. Pugh, & A. J. Weisl (Eds.), Medievalisms. Making the past in the present (pp. 12–29). Routledge.
Sandoval Pérez, G. E., & Florido, J. (2006). La divina comedia. Clío.
Smith, G. (2016). Rauschenberg’s modern Infernos for Life magazine. Visual Resources, 32(1–2), 145–168. https://doi.org/10.1080/01973762.2016.1130937.
Solonche, J. R. (2019, April 12). Heroes and antiheroes. The New York Times. Retrieved June 1, 2023 from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/books/review/letters-to-the-editor.html.
Theisen, N. A. (2021). Review of Dante’s Divine Comedy by Seymour Chwast. ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies, 6(3). https://imagetextjournal.com/review-of-dantes-divine-comedy-by-seymour-chwast/.
Tondro, J. (2015). ‘Nightcrawler’s Inferno’ and other hellish tales: Comics adaptations of Dante. In G. Ashton (Ed.), Medieval afterlives in contemporary culture (pp. 291–300). Bloomsbury.
Winter, U. (2018). L’Inferno up to date: Attualizzazioni dell’Inferno di Dante nei fumetti. Dante e l’arte, 5, 61–80. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/dea.94.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interests
The authors have no conflicting interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Nemegeer, G., Santi, M. Dante, American-Style: Seymour Chwast’s Graphic Adaptations of the Divine Comedy and European Literature. Neophilologus (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-024-09802-2
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-024-09802-2