Abstract

Aquest assaig tracta d'investigar la particular i sens dubte intensa relacio entre l'Infern de Dante i Kurt Cobain, cantautor de grunge, probablement el grup mes famos, Nirvana, i principal portaveu de l'anomenada Generacio X a principis dels 90 en la cultura occidental. Les pistes que condueixen al primer Cantic de Dante es poden trobar sorprenentment en tots els discos publicats per Nirvana, des de Bleach (1989) fins a In Utero (1993), revelant una interessant seccio transversal sobre la interpretacio i adaptacio de la imatgeria de Dante als Estats Units, aixi com una imatge millorada del llegat artistic de Kurt Cobain com una exploracio de la lectura de poesia per part dels joves occidentals a la fi del segle passat. Referencies precises i fatals al XIII Canto conclouen la recerca, donant tota la profunditat humana mes enlla d'aquesta interseccio entre l'era Grunge i l'Edat mitjana italiana.

Highlights

  • Questo saggio cerca di indagare il particolare e indubbiamente intenso rapporto tra l’Inferno di Dante e Kurt Cobain, cantautore di Grunge, probabilmente il gruppo più famoso, i Nirvana, e portavoce principale della cosiddetta “Generation X” all’inizio degli anni ‘90 nella cultura occidentale

  • Dante’s Inferno was one of Kurt Cobain’s favourite books and he managed to hide footprints that lead to the Divine Comedy behind all of the three albums that Nirvana published, Bleach (1989), Nevermind (1991) and In Utero (1993)

  • As a matter of fact, Grunge, arguably the most relevant American music phenomenon within the last decade of the 20th Century, expression and sublimation of what was commonly named as the “Generation X” after a book by Douglas Coupland, held in its deepest roots unexpected literary references and it could be definitely interesting to point out that even before the widely-known literary infatuation of Eddie Vedder, Chris Cornell, Mark Lanegan, or Greg Dulli, the most celebrated artist within that creative movement had already paved the way to walk down that inner route along which offbeat literature becomes life and offbeat life becomes literature

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Summary

The literary shelter: a sui generis cultural education

Dante’s Inferno was one of Kurt Cobain’s favourite books and he managed to hide footprints that lead to the Divine Comedy behind all of the three albums that Nirvana published, Bleach (1989), Nevermind (1991) and In Utero (1993). Nothing could be further from the Italian Middle Ages and its poetic legacy, but it is exactly during this undeniably tough adolescence that Cobain started to attend a crucial place for his cultural upbringing, “where he spent many hours, often when he should have been in school” (Gaar 2009, 245) and where he met the work of Dante Alighieri This period of homelessness, was frequently filled up with whole days reading books at the Aberdeen Timberland Library, a peculiar coincidence that brings to the memory the biographies of authors such as Henry Miller, Sandro Penna, or George Orwell in his Down and out in Paris and London, for instance. The writer declined the offer to impersonate the Pope on the Heart-Shaped Box music video, but it would be clear onward why this video is so important for the bond between Dante and Kurt Cobain

From the muddy banks of the Inferno
With the lights out: the unexpected presence of Dante in Nirvana’s Nevermind
A Forest-Shaped Box: a son lost in the dark wood
Don’t ever fade away: why Dante?
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