Assignment
Analytical questions
1. Many have praised Dante's use of symbolism in his inclusion of Christian, Hebraic, and Greco-Roman elements and in his description of his own moral education, of the cosmos, and of the types of sins and punishments. Describe and assess what you think are his 3-5 most successful uses of symbolism, and contrast those with at least a couple of his less successful uses.
2. Dante tries to synthesize all the learning of the Christian, Hebraic, and Greco-Roman traditions. From which does he draw the most and with which is he most successful? Explain.
3. Evaluate Dante's rank order of sins. Does his moral hierarchy make sense as you view human behavior today? Consider Dante's basic assumptions as well as his ordering of specific types of sin. Consider at least one type of sin in each of Dante's three general levels of Hell. If you agree with Dante in general, are there specific judgments with which you disagree? Explain.
4. Explain how the moral universe created by Dante is consistent with the doctrine that "God is love." If not, explain why not.
5. How do Virgil's lectures and admonitions affect Dante's attitude and moral perspective? Is Dante totally uncritical of Virgil? If Virgil symbolizes reason, what value does Dante give it? How does it relate to love or to emotions? In what ways do you agree or disagree?
Factual reading questions Introduction
1. What are Dante's dates (birth and death)? 1595
2. Where was Dante born and raised? 1595
3. Dante presumably began writing Commedia shortly after 1300. When did he write Monarchia? 1595
4. In general, whose political power did the Guelphs support? 1595
5. After their internal fracture, who opposed the despotic Pope Boniface VIII, White or Black Guelphs?
6. In 1302, Dante was exiled by the Black Guelphs. Why did his family get to stay in Florence? 1596
7. When Boccaccio attached the adjective Divine to this work, what was he saying about its subject matter? 1596
8. What are the three parts or books of the Commedia? 1596
9. T/F: Purgatory was not a part of official church doctrine in Dante's lifetime. 1596
10. Who is Dante's model as well as guide through Hell and Purgatory? 1597
11. In what year did Beatrice Portinari, whom Dante idealizes as a symbol of divine love, die. 1597
12. Into how many cantos is the entire Commedia divided? 1597
13. Into how many circles is Hell divided (in addition to the "Ante-Inferno)? 1597
14. The structure and style of the Commedia are based on the number three, which "highlights" what principle of church doctrine? 1597
15. As assumed in the Commedia, what is "at the center of the universe"? 1597
16. T/F: Satan appears wrapped in flames at the center of the earth. 1598
17. Where does suffering supposedly have purpose? 1598
18. As Dante discovers in Paradisio, by what are "the endless motions of the heavens, turned"? 1598
Inferno
19. According to Dante's first line in Inferno, what is the fictional date of this poem? 160o
20. Who has wandered off from the straight path? 1600
21. What does he see, "And only then did terror start subsiding"? 1600
22. Which beast does he see first? 160i
23. With what does the she-wolf seem "racked"? 1601
24. Which of these three beasts "forced me back to where the sun is mute? 1601
25. During whose reign does Virgil say he lived? 1602
26. To which best is Virgil referring that "allows no soul to" proceed? 1602
27. T/F: Virgil recommends himself as guide before Dante asks. 1603
28. What institution shows that Rome became "the place of holiness"? 1604
29. Who asked Virgil to help Dante? 1605
30. What emotion prompted Beatrice to help Dante? 1605
31. Whom did the Virgin Mary send to ask Beatrice to help Dante? 1606
32. What are the last seven words Dante reads above the Gate of Hell? 1607
33. What does Virgil say that Dante must "let die on this spot"? 1607
34. The first shades Dante sees, just outside the first circle of Hell, are those who stood for nothing (the "cowardly"). What do they chase after, "whirling with aimless speed"? 1608
35. Dante understands that the cowardly are hateful both to God and to whom? 16o8
36. Who is Charon? 1609
37. T/F: The sinners are eager for the river crossing. 1610
38. What is the name of the first circle? 1610
39. What feeling in Virgil does Dante mistake for fear? 1611
40. T/F: As they enter the first circle, Dante meets many wailing in pain. 1611
41. Although the virtuous pagans "live on in desire" from what are they "cut off'? 1611
42. Who are the "four giant shades" Dante meets in Limbo? 1612
43. Whom does Dante recognize as "the master sage or all philosophers? 1613
44. What does an "evil soul" do when it meets Minos at the gate to level two? 1614
45. How Minos indicate "just how far the sinner must go down'? 1614
46. Of what are the sinners guilty when Dante first hears "sounds on sounds of weeping" 1615
47. In this general region of Hell, what is it that "appetite" make a slave? 1615
48. T/F: The punishment for the lustful is to be blown about by hot wind. 1615
49. What does Dante feel that "confused my senses, and I was 'dazed-? 1616
50. In what circle will we find Gianciotto, who murdered Francesca and Paolo for their odulteni? 1617
51. Because of what strong sentiment does Dante faint? 1617
52. What's the weather like in the third circle? 1618
53. What animal does Cerberus most resemble? 1618
54. Ciacco means "hog" or "pig" in Italian. Who gave this name to the character? 1619
55. What city is it "so plagued with strife"? 1619
56. What brings with it pleasure or pain "more keen"? 1620
57. By what types of sinners "could heap up / suffering and pain as strange as I saw here"? 1621
58. In whom is avarice "most likely to prevail"? 1622
59. Who "holds all worldly wealth within her fists?" 1622
60. T/F: Virgil explains that Dame Fortune is blind and foresees nothing while turning her wheel. 1622-1623
61. Who are those who "cannot sing in words that truly sound"? 1623
62. After his rejection, what does Filippo Argenti, "gone mad," he do to himself? 1625
63. Who are the guards at the gate of Dis ("more than a thousand") who cause Virgil trouble? 1625-1626
64. What "grew as hair" from the heads of the Furies? 1628
65. T/F: Heaven's messenger breaks open the gate of Dis with Herculean power. 1629
66. As they enter Dis, they see sepulchers with glowing heat. Who are in these tombs? 1630
67. What did Epicurus (and others in the area of Hell) believe about the soul? 1631
68. How many times had Dante's family been driven out of Florence? 1631
69. What happened to Guido, a fellow poet, while Dante was part of the government? 1632
70. Farinata suggests that Dante will be exiled. To what year does that post-date this poem? 1632
71. Although the damned can see the future, what can they not see? 1633
72. From whom, rather than Virgil, will Dante eventually "learn your life's itinerary"? 1633
73. As they reach the bottom of Circle 6 (and of the sins of incontinence), what forces their delay? 1634
74. What heresy does Dante ascribe to Pope Anastasius? 1634
75. As Virgil explains the three general types (levels) of sins, which "belongs exclusively to man"? 1634
76. Which type of sin "offends God least"? 1636
77. In medieval thought, whatever humans make is art. What then is the relationship of our art to God? 1636
78. What is Minotaur, who guards the circle of the Violent? 1637
79. Whom did Chiron, the leader of the centaurs, tea: and teach? 1639
80. With what does Chiron part his beard to both sides of his jaws"? 1639
81. What do Dante's feet do that " a dead man's feet would' not do? 1639
82. On which centaur does Dante ride to cross the river of boiling blood? i639
83. By whom as Obizzo of Este murdered? 1640
84. T/F: The ring of the suicides is not marked by any path 1641
85. What creatures have "human necks and faces, / their feet are clawed"? 1641
86. What does "That courtesan" personify that is the special vice of courts"? 1642
87. To what is Pier della Vigna [a suicide] referring that they'll "never again to wear them"? 1643
88. What mythical god did John the Baptist replace as the patron saint of Florence? 1644
89. What rains endlessly "in broad flakes" on the plain of Ring 3, Circle 7? 1645
90. As a blasphemer, on what must Capaneus lie? 1646
91. Whose tears form the source of the four rivers of lien? 1647
92. For what sin is Ser Brunetto in Hell? 1649
93. According to Brunetto Latino, what does "destiny" reserve for Dante? 1650
94. T/F: Ser. Brunetto says his group of sinners arc few in number. 1651
95. On what do Ser Brunetto and his fellow sinners walk/run? 1651
96. Of those runners, does Dante view Ser Brunetto as a winner or a loser? 1651
97. T/F: These shades, the sodomites, according to Virgil, "merit your respect"? 1652
98. Whom does Rusticucci blame for his sodomy? 1653
99. What "good intention" is prevented by Dante's fear of the burning fire? 1653
100. What was Dante wearing with which he thought he could "catch the leopard," symbol of fraud? 0:54
101. From the bottom of what, "through the thick & murky air," does Geryon emerge? 1654-1655
102. Geryon's face was like the face of what? 1655
103. What is the tip of Geryon's tail like? 1656
104. The "blue sow, pregnant-looking" signifies the arms of the Scrovegni (skro-VAY-nee) family, and the speaker is probably Reginaldo. This family hired Giotto to paint the Arena Chapel, which bozo in" a % en innovative and famous artistic achievement. Like what does Reginaldo stick his tongue out? 1656-1657
105. From what does Virgil, the symbol of reason, protect Dante as they ride on Geryon's shoulders? 1657
106. After they dismount, like what does the mighty Geryon fly away? 1658
107. With what did the "horned devils" torture the naked panderers and seducers? 1659
108. Who is the majestic seducer "who does not shed a single tear of pain"? t660
109. By what does Alessio Interminei say "I am stuck down here" in human excrement? 1661
110. What did the lover ask "Thais the whore"? 1661
111. What was the "most common form of simony"? 1662 [see note.)
112. What dances on the souls of the simonists' feet? 1662
113. Pope Nicholas III predicts Clement V will sell out to the king of France. When did that happen? 1663
114. What did Virgil do during Dante's harsh words about simony? 1665
115. Who does Dante say, "they never saw what was ahead of them"? 1665
116. For what feeling does Virgil admonish Dante, "So you are still like all the other fools?"? 1666
117. What did some women, "wretched hags," trade in to become fortune tellers? 1668
118. What heats the "sticky tar... boiling in the ditch"? 1669
119. Where does Dante crouch while Virgil confronts Malacoda, leader of the Malebranche? 1670
120. What's the fictional date of this poem, according to Malacoda's counting from the Crucifixion? 1671
121. Who says, "we're in danger"? 1672
122. What did the Malebranche do with the grafters if they could catch them above the boiling pitch? 1673
123. Who "went plunging straight into the boiling pond": the demons or the sinners? 1675
124. To whom does Dante refer, saying, "now they meant to get us!"? 1677
125. What is on the inside of the monkish cloaks worn by the hypocrites? 1677
126. What is on the outside of the monkish cloaks worn by the hypocrites? 1677
127. Who is the greatest of all hypocrites, "stretched out across the road" for the others to step on? 1675
128. To what does Dante refer, saying, "without it man must waste his life away"? 1680
129. T/F: Virgil assures Dante a much tougher climb lies ahead. 1681
130. What does a heliotrope if worn as a ring or otherwise? 1681
131. What happens to the soul of the thief when bitten on the neck by a great serpent? 1682
132. In what shape does the thief Vanni Fucci raise his fists to God? 1683
133. What happens to the shapes (appearances) of the serpents and thieves after the sinner is bitten? 1684 ff
134. What happens to the thief's "tongue, that had been one piece and capable"? 1686
135. According to Dante, what shows the renown of Florence? 1687
136. Why is it "just vengeance" that Ulysses and Diomed "march together now"? 1688
137. What was 'the burning wish" that Ulysses could not quench? 1689
138. With whose voice did the Sicilian bull always bellow? 1690
139. Why does Guido de Montefeltro answer Dante "with no fear of dishonor"? 1692
140. Who asked Guido "how / I can level Palestrina to the ground"? 1693
141. As Guido says, "one cannot be absolved" of sin by a priest "unless" what? 1693
142. What were the "great spoils" of war displayed by the Carthaginians, which Livy wrote about? 1694
143. How are those who lead schisms punished? 1694-1695
144. What schism was led by Ali, nephew and son-in-law of Muhammad? 1695
145. What forward date of composition is indicated by the story of Messer Guido and Angiolello? 1696
146. Whom did Bertran de Born "set against each other"? 1697
147. What is a "the perfect contrapasso"? 1697
148. Why does Dante share the "disgrace" of Geri del Bello's death? 1698
149. Why was Griffolino of Arezzo burned at the stake? 1700
150. For what sin has Griffolino of Arezzo been placed "to the last bolgia of the ten"? 1700
151. For what purpose did Myrrha falsely pretend "that her body was another's"? 1702
152. At the top of page 1698, the circuit of Hell is said to be 22 miles. What's the circuit now? 1703
153. For what "fault" of Dante's does Virgil say, "Less shame than yours would wash away"? 1704
154. According to Virgil, with what does Dante "confuse the truth"? 1705
155. Whose face is "about as long / and just as wide as St. Peter's cone"? 1706
156. Who can understand Nimrod? 1706
157. Who lowers Dante and Virgil into the pit of the Ninth Circle? 1707-1708
158. In the First Ring (Una) of the Ninth Circle, in what, "like a sheet of glass," are the sinners frozen? 1709
159. In what direction does each sinner keep "his face bowed"? 1709
160. Over what had they fought and killed each other, who now "like billy-goats / were butting at each other"? 1709
161. In the Second Ring of the Ninth Circle, whom does Dante grab by the hair? 1711
162. Where might Dante "repay your confidence" if the sinner gives his reasons? 1711
163. What did Count Ugolino's children say "would makes us suffer less"? 1713
164. The fortresses of which city did Count Ugolino trade-in to Lucca and Florence? 1714
165. As they enter the third subdivision of Cocytus, Tolomea, what else, besides the cold, does Dante now notice about the weather? 1714
166. According to Fra Alberigo, what happens to a soul if "a demon takes possession of the body"? 1715
167. What does Dante not do for Fra Alberigo? 1715
168. What seems at first "a far-off windmill turning its huge sails"? 1716
169. How many faces does Satan have, with colors symbolic of human ethnicities? 1717
170. What are "stretched out" beneath each face? 1717
171. Which sinner is in Satan's "front" (and upper) mouth? 1717
172. Which two sinners are in Satan's other mouths? 1717
173. On what does Dante hold on to as they proceed? 1717
174. By pulling on what dues Virgil proceed? 1718
175. After Virgil gets him "through the rocky crevice," what part of Satan does Dante see? 1718
176. On what hemisphere do they now stand? 1719
177. From what had "the mountain-land," on edge of which they stand, "fled"? 1719