Dante's Inferno

Consider the character of Virgil. How does Dante’s relationship with Virgil develop? Why might Dante have chosen Virgil as his guide? What can (and cannot) Virgil see? What (and how) does he teach Dante?

Hell is a disturbing place, and one that might not seem to square with the idea of a loving God. But, as the gates over the door say, “JUSTICE MOVED MY HIGH MAKER” (3.4). How is Hell just—and how does the justice of Hell relate to divine love and to free will?

Consider the poetic shape of The Inferno—a shape that will continue throughout the Divine Comedy. Why might Dante have chosen terza rima for this work? How does the poem’s shape relate to its meaning?

Dante’s groundbreaking choice to write the Divine Comedy in vernacular Italian rather than Latin changed his country: modern Italian is still Dante’s Italian, as modern English is Shakespeare’s. Why might Dante have made this choice? How does his use of the vernacular relate to some of the Comedy’s themes?

Dante runs into all kinds of characters in Hell, but he spends most of his time talking with his Italian contemporaries. Why might Dante have chosen to ground his journey through the eternal underworld in contemporary life and politics?

How might Dante read (and condemn) contemporary sins? Write a parody canto in which Dante encounters a modern-day figure in Hell. Where in Hell might this figure be, what might the contrapasso be for them, and how might they try to explain themselves?

What does the “relay of grace”—in which Mary tells Lucia to tell Beatrice to tell Virgil to rescue Dante—tell you about the structure of Dante’s universe? And why might Beatrice, a lovely Florentine girl, not an angel or a saint, play such an important role in Dante’s religious experience?

Francesca’s misreading of a romantic book is only a part of her larger misreading of the world. What role does careful reading play in The Inferno? How do reading and misreading shape Hell?