English 2111

Study Questions

Inferno

 

Canto I

 

 

  1. When does the poem begin?  When in Dante’s life?  Dante was born in 1265.  When would halfway through his life be?

 

  1. In fact the poem begins on Easter weekend (Maundy Thursday-Good Friday) of that year.  Which year?

 

  1. Is the dark wood that Dante is lost in a real wood or a symbolic one?  If symbolic, what does it stand for?

 

  1. What beasts threaten Dante in the wood?  What might they stand for?

 

  1. Virgil shows up to help Dante find his way.  Who is Virgil, and why is he especially significant for Dante?

 

  1. Where does Virgil propose to take Dante to get him back on the path (112-120)?

 

  1. Why can’t Virgil take Dante all the way into the realm of the blessed?

 

Canto II

 

  1. Why would Dante have an invocation of the muse (6) in this poem?  Where have you seen an invocation like this before?

 

  1. What is Dante’s problem with going on the journey Virgil proposes?  Why bring up Aeneas and Paul?

 

  1. What does Virgil tell him about his mental condition?

 

  1. Note the long simile (37-42).  Where have you seen extended similes like this one before?

 

  1. Who, according to Virgil, sent him to help Dante?  Who is she, and where does she come from to seek Virgil?  Where is Virgil when she finds him?

 

  1. What was Beatrice to Dante?

 

Canto III

 

  1. On the gate of hell, what does it mean to say, “Before me nothing was but things eternal”?

 

  1. Who are the people here in the vestibule of hell?  Why aren’t they in hell proper, or in purgatory?

 

  1. Who is the pope in this part of hell, and why is he here?

 

  1. Who are the people on the shore of Acheron?  Who ferries them across?  Where did Dante get the figure of the boatman?

 

  1. Go back to Book 1.  Turn to the Aeneid, Book 6.  Start on page 825 and read a few pages.  What are the similarities between Virgil’s underworld and Dante’s hell?

 

  1. Who are the people gathered on the shore of the Acheron in Virgil’s poem?  How are the people in the Inferno different from those in the Aeneid?

 

  1. Read the extended metaphor in Virgil’s account (51-64).  Where does Dante use virtually the same metaphor in Canto III?

 

  1. Why do the people in Virgil’s underworld want to get across Acheron?  How to the people in Dante’s hell feel about the place they are going?  Don’t assume that you know.  Read what Dante has Virgil say (121-126).

 

  1. Does Charon want to take Dante across Acheron?  Why not?  How does Dante get across?  Why don’t you know?

 

Canto IV

 

  1. What part of hell do Dante and Virgil arrive at first?  Who lives there?  Why didn’t they go to heaven?

 

  1. Who are the Romans here in Limbo?  Who are the Trojans?

 

  1. What act is Dante referring to when he talks about Abaraham, David, and others being taken to heaven (52-63)?

 

  1. Which poets greet Virgil when he arrives?

 

  1. If you associated yourself with Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton, with maybe Wordsworth thrown in, you’d get an idea of what Dante is doing (79-102).  Does putting himself in the company of the greatest poets display a certain confidence on his part?

 

  1. Even Saladin—leader of the Muslim armies in the Crusades—finds a place in Limbo.  Where are the Greek heroes, Achilles and others?

 

Canto V

 

  1. What sinners are being punished in the second circle of hell, and what is their punishment?

 

  1. Do you see any of the Greeks here?  Trojans?  Why would they be here?

 

  1. Who was Dido, and why would she be here?

 

  1. Who are the people Dante stops to talk to?  Why are they in this part of hell?

 

  1. Paolo’s brother, Gianciotto Malatesta, killed them when he caught them in the act.  Was what they were doing unforgivable?  Was it really very, very bad?  Then why do they wind up in hell rather than purgatory?

 

  1. How does Dante get to the next circle of hell?  Why don’t you know?

 

Canto VI

 

  1. What sinners are being punished in the third circle, and how are they being punished?

 

  1. What happens when Dante steps on the people here?  See Aeneid  pp. 825-26 for comparison.

 

  1. Why does Dante wind up talking to Ciacco?  And what does Ciacco mean?

 

  1. What question does Dante ask Ciacco about Florence, and what answer does Ciacco give?

 

  1. How would Ciacco know what is going to happen in Florence?  Don’t answer this question now, but remember it.

 

  1. What is the question that Dante asks in VI, 103-105, and what authority does Virgil cite in his answer?  What philosopher’s name was almost synonymous with “science” in Dante’s time?

 

Cantos VII and VIII

 

  1. What sinners are being punished in the fourth and fifth circles, and what are their punishments?

 

  1. Who are the ones with “tonsured heads” (VII, 38)?

 

  1. Who is Filippo Argenti (VIII, 31-64), and what happens to him?

 

  1. All the sins punished in rings 2-5 are sins of incontinence.  What does “incontinence” mean now?  What did it mean in Dante’s time?

 

Canto IX

 

  1. The rebellious angels try to prevent Virgil and Dante from entering Dis, or lower hell.  How do they finally get in?

 

Canto X

 

  1. Circle 6 contains the heretics, among whom is Epicurus.   Epicurus taught that you should live a life of moderation (seek pleasure and avoid pain).  Why would he have gone to hell for that?  Or was it something different?

 

  1. The most interesting person in this circle of hell is Farinata.  What happens to make Dante stop to talk to Farinata?

 

  1. Where in Canto VI did we see Farinata referred to?  Why was he referred to there?

 

  1. What is the first thing Farinata wants to know about Dante?  Where have we heard this kind of question before?

 

  1. What was the relationship between Farinata’s people and Dante’s in Florence?

 

  1. Who is it that interrupts Dante and Farinata with questions about his son?  How would Dante have known Guido?

 

  1. Dante in 49-51 makes a kind of smart-aleck jab at Farinata.  What does it mean, and how does Farinata respond to it in 79-81?

 

  1. How long will it be, in Farinata’s explanation, before Dante is exiled from Florence?

 

  1. Question 39 asks how Ciacco would know what is going to happen in the future.  Farinata makes a prediction here, and he explains how he knows (100-105).  How do those in hell know what is going to happen?

 

  1. Farinata says that the knowledge of the people in hell will perish (that is, they will know nothing) “at the very moment / the portals of the future close” (107-108).  When will that be?

 

Canto XI

 

  1. As Virgil and Dante prepare to descend to the seventh circle, they stop to get used to the stench of hell, and Virgil gives the layout of hell.  What sins are being punished from the seventh circle down?

 

  1. What sins are being punished in the three divisions of the seventh circle?  What sins in the eighth circle?  What sins in the ninth?

 

  1. We are three circles from the bottom of hell, and yet we have 22 of 34 cantos to go.  Why would that be?  Do the people get more interesting as their sins become greater?

 

  1. What question does Dante ask (67-75) about the people being punished for incontinence in circles 2-5, and what authority does Virgil cite (again) in his answer?

 

  1. Dante has in the first section of the seventh circle murderers, robbers and plunderers (violent against others).  It the second circle the suicides (violent against self). In the third circle, the violent against God, he has the sodomites and the moneylenders.  Why are the bankers in hell with the sodomites?

 

  1. Dante asks just that question (91-96).  What is Virgil’s answer?

 

  1. Virgil cites two authorities, Aristotle and Genesis, in his answer.  Does it help to say “art” instead of “toil” in 103? According to Aristotle’s poetics art imitates nature.  Nature is God’s child, so to speak, so art would be the grandchild.  So what is wrong with the way the usurer makes his living?