Dante Aligheri (1265-1321)
The Divine Comedy (ca. 1300-1321)
Things To Consider:

• Imagery
• Relationship between Catholic and Pagan ideas/stories
• Symbolic Retribution:  Examples
• "Numerology"
• Chronology (i.e. Easter Weekend)
• Italian History
• Ghibellines and Guelphs (Black & White)
• Allegory
• Influence of Virgil's Aeneid
• terza rima

** Homework Questions **

• What is "symbolic retribution"?  Provide an example from the Inferno.

533:

• Explain the numerology involved in the Divine Comedy.
• What does "comedy" mean?
• What is allegory?

Inferno:
Canto II:  The Descent
536:

• What literary technique is employed in lines 7-9 of the Canto?

539:

• Explain the epic simile at the end of the Canto.

Canto V:  Circle Two:  The Carnal
544:

• Who is Minos?

545:

• Who is "she who killed herself for love, / And broke faith with the ashes of Sichaeus" (5.61-62)?
• Why are she and Achilles here?  Why isn't she with the Suicides (included in a later Canto)?

547:

• Why does Dante swoon after hearing Francesca's tale?

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Other Discussion Questions:
Canto I: The Dark Wood of Error
531:

• Why was Dante exiled from Florence in 1302?
• Who was Beatrice Portinari (1266-1290) ?

533:

• What does Virgil symbolize?
• What does Beatrice symbolize?

534:

• How old is Dante when he begins this journey?
• What do these "things" symbolize?
• Wood
• Sun
• Mountain
• Panther/Leopard
• Lion
• She-Wolf
• Virgil
• Beatrice
• Easter

535:

• What does Dante think about Virgil?

536:

• Explain Virgil's lines:  "That emperor, who reigns above, / In that I was rebellious to his law, / Wills that through me none come into his city" (1.128-30).

Canto II:  The Descent
537:

• Why does Dante hesitate to begin the journey?
• How does Virgil respond?

538:

• How has Beatrice left Heaven and arrive "not afraid to enter here" (2.90).

Canto III:  The Vestibule:  The Opportunists
539:

• Explain:  "Abandon all hope ye who enter here"(3.9).

540:

• What is the punishment for those "who have not rebellious been, / Nor faithful were to God, but were for self" (3.38-39).
• What is Acheron?

541:

• Explain:  "Because celestial justice spurs them on, / . . . their fear is turned into desire" (3.125-26).
• Why does Dante faint?
• Who is Charon?
• Explain:  "This way there never passes a good soul" (3.127).

Canto IV:  Circle One:  Limbo:  Virtuous Pagans
542:

• Why does Virgil become "pallid utterly" (4.14)?
• Explain:  "Lost are we, and are only so far punished, / That without hope we live on in desire" (4.38-39).  What is the punishment for the Virtuous Pagans?

543:

• Has anyone ever left this Limbo/Hell for Paradise?
• Was Eve one of them?
• Why is Jesus's name not mentioned?
• Explain: "Earlier than these / Never were any human spirits saved" (4.59-60).
• Who is honoring whom by including Dante "among" Homer, Virgil, Horace, Ovid,  and Lucan?
• What does the "noble castle" (4.103) represent?

544:

• Who inhabits it?

Canto XXXIV: Center:  Satan
547:

• Describe Satan's position.
• What literary technique is exhibited in the lines that begin, "As turtle-doves, called onward by desire" (24.82)?
• What is Dis?

548:

• Why does Satan have three heads?  What might this symbolize?
• Whom does he chew?

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