writing help!

[salixbabylon]

Okay Literature and Art majors - I need your help!

I'm writing a Halloween party where diffreernt rooms are decorated like different versions of Hell. I've got:

Dante’s Inferno
Milton’s Paradise Lost
Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights
William Blake's something

I haven't read Milton. Or Goethe's Dr. Faustus. Neither seem quite right, based on what I've gleaned from Wikipedia.

Help, please? Any well known classical/literary/artistic versions of Hell are welcome!

Comments

[swingingstars.livejournal.com]

For Milton or Blake you could have them decorate based on the picture of Moloch rising from hell that I believe Blake painted. I'm pretty sure it's google-able~

I never read Goethe's Dr Faustus but I assume it's similar to Thomas Mann's Dr. Faustus, so if you wanted to decorate that - I would go with a Victorian aristocracy like feel - velvet and reds and more sinister upperclass social Darwinist rather than flat out hellfire.

[salixbabylon.livejournal.com]

Ooh, got the name wrong - thank you for the correction. I'll go do some googling. :)

[aqua-alta.livejournal.com]

You could always go with Virgil's Aneid (Virgil was Dante's guide in hell for a reason, after all *g*). There should be detailed descriptions/paraphrases or translations on the interwebs (the descent into and journey through the underworld is in book VI of the Aneid).
There's also Ovid's Metamorphoses, book X, where you can find Orpheus' descent into the underworld in search for Eurydike.

Sorry, all I seem to be able to come up with tonight are the Romans... Maybe I can think of more tomorrow...

(And re: Goethe's "Faust" (which is the proper name of his plays ("Faust. The First Part of the Tragedy" and "Faust. The Second Part of the Tragedy") - "Dr. Faustus" is indeed by Thomas Mann and, while playing with the 'Faust myth', features the fictional composer Leverkühn (late 19th/early 20th century) - even though Mephistopheles is one of the main characters (if not the main character), the story never takes place in hell (in neither part), so there aren't any real scenes 'set' in hell...)

[salixbabylon.livejournal.com]

Ooh, you're full of info! Thank you, thank you - off to look for images. :)

[heartofslash.livejournal.com]

You need a lake of fire for Milton. And lots of demons and devils perched on rocks having arguments abut the best way to piss off God.

You could always got for Bill and Ted's hell...low-ceilinged tunnels with your worst nightmares behind every door. Ominous Easter bunnies and drooling Grannies wanting a kiss.

[salixbabylon.livejournal.com]

*snort* You know, I never saw part 2... Maybe it's time. ;)

[hammil77.livejournal.com]

I feel like a bad art major because no paintings came to mind except Michelangelo's The Last Judgment. However as I googled that I also came up with Eugène Delacroix's Virgil and Dante in Hell as well as William-Adolphe Bouguereau's Dante And Virgil In Hell, which I believe is more well known. There's also Luca Signorelli's frescoes at the Orvieto Cathedral. You can find some better pictures of the frescoes here.

I'm not so sure if this is what you were after though. When it comes to hell my mind immediately goes to Dante's Inferno and I think a good number of painters took inspiration from him.

Although if you wanted really classical versions of hell there's always the Greeks tales of the Underworld. The Odyssey has a good part written on Odysseus's journey there.

[salixbabylon.livejournal.com]

hehehe - great links, thank you! I'm loving the images - very helpful! :)

[gladsomemind.livejournal.com]

Have a word with Jeanne, she should be able to pull you several comic book representations easily.

Season of the Mists springs to mind.

Not highbrow, classical/literary, hell I admit but certainly artistic!

[salixbabylon.livejournal.com]

J and I aren't speaking very much anymore. But I'll check out the comic books! :)

[gladsomemind.livejournal.com]

Know the feeling. And given the attitude at tea that time I wouldn't have mentioned *why* you wanted them :Þ

Either way Sandman and/or Lucifer had some pictoral representations of Hell (going to be culled from your other sources most likely but still)