Abstract

The article studies Dante’s Commedia and its influence on American televisual culture. In addition to exploring how the poem has shaped the audience’s perception of the afterlife, it observes how the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) interweaves, appropriates, and adapts the medieval text into its series arc. Throughout its production, Buffy the Vampire Slayer received critical praise and recognition, including a 1999 Emmy Awards nomination and, in 2014, was included in Time magazine’s “100 Best TV Shows of All Time.” In addition, the series has amassed a place in academia, in part due to the publication of Slayage: The Journal of the Whedon Studies Association. Although the program is worthy of further intellectual exploration, often it is snubbed because of its content and medium, television. Throughout its seven-year span, the show has appropriated Sophocles, Shakespeare, the Brothers Grimm, T. S. Eliot, and E. M. Forster throughout each season’s main story arc. However, what is striking about the series is that it playfully hides one of its primary sources from view: Dante. The article explores how Dante’s adaptation and appropriation raise the show’s status of low, domestic culture to a higher level of art and transtextuality.

摘要

文章研究但丁的喜剧及其对美国电视文化的影响。除了探索这首诗如何塑造了观众对来世的看法外，它还观察了电视连续剧《吸血鬼猎人巴菲》（ Buffy the Vampire Slayer，1997-2003）如何将中世纪文本交织、挪用和改编成其系列弧线。在整个制作过程中，吸血鬼猎人巴菲获得了好评和认可，包括 1999 年艾美奖提名，并在 2014 年被《时代》杂志评为“有史以来 100 部最佳电视节目”。此外，该系列在学术界也占有一席之地，部分原因是出版了《杀戮：惠登研究协会杂志》. 尽管该节目值得进一步的智力探索，但由于其内容和媒介，电视经常被冷落。在长达七年的时间里，该节目在每个季节的主要故事情节中都使用了索福克勒斯、莎士比亚、格林兄弟、TS 艾略特和 EM 福斯特。然而，该系列的惊人之处在于它顽皮地隐藏了它的主要来源之一：但丁。这篇文章探讨了但丁的改编和挪用如何将节目的低级本土文化地位提升到更高的艺术水平和跨文本性。