Possible Reading Response Journal Topic:
Cantos
1. Good Friday, April 8th, 1300: Dante lost; three beasts; Virgil rescues Dante; what are Dante’s first spoken words and why is this important? Fascination with threes: terza rima, three beasts representative of sins of youth, maturity, and old age, etc.
2. Dante hesitates; three heavenly women; start of twenty-four hour trip to Earth’s center
3. Hell’s gate: the morally neutral; the gathering of the damned; Charon; Acheron
4. First Circle: Limbo; the unbaptized; the good pagans; how is Dante treated by the good
pagans?; how do we countenance the necessity of putting unbaptized
children in hell?
5. Second Circle: Judge Minos; the lustful; the dark winds; Francesca and Paola; how
does Dante treat the lustful sinners?; why does Dante collapse as he
leaves this part of hell?
6. Third Circle: the dog Cerberus(again, the number three!); the gluttonous; endless cold,
dirty rain; Ciacco: what does Ciacco ask Dante to do when the poet
returns from hell?
7. Fourth Circle: the wolf Pluto; misers, wastrels; rock-pushing; the River Styx. Fifth
Circle: the angry (thrashed); the sullen (submerged, bubbles); how are
the punishments in the fifth circle appropriate to the sin?
8. Fifth Circle (continued): the boatman Phlegyas; Filippo Argenti; City of Dis sighted;
how does Dante treat Argenti?; should we be troubled by this?
9. Fifth Circle (continued): the Furies at the gate; the delivering angel; City of Dis
entered. Sixth Circle: heretics in flaming tombs; what is the distinction
Dante makes between the heretics within Dis and the heretics (noble
pagans) in Limbo?
10. Sixth Circle (continued): Epicurus; Farinata prophesies; father of Dante’s friend
Calvalcanti; what does Farinata prophesize about Dante?; how does Dante
react?
11. Respite: Virgil explains the classification of sins; why does Dante include this review?
12. Seventh Circle: Minotaur, centaurs; the violent against others; the river of blood
13. Seventh Circle (continued): the violent against self; the tangled wood; the suicides;
the Harpies. How is the punishment in this area of the circle
appropriate to the sin?
14. Seventh Circle (continued): the violent against God/nature; the desert, with flame
flakes; the blasphemers; Capaneus; how does Virgil respond to
Capaneus? Why was Capaneus punished and why does this not fit in
Dante’s Christian belief?
15. Seventh Circle (continued): the violent against nature; the sodomites; Brunetto
Latini;; what is Brunetto punished for?; Is his punishment just? What
does Dante the character think? And is this different from Dante the
poet?
16. Seventh Circle (continued): the violent against nature (continued): three Florentine
nobleman; the usurers; How does Dante present the sinners in this
circle? Why does he seem to treat and speak of them differently from
other sinners?
17. Man-serpent Geryon lowers Virgil and Dante to the next circle; what two
mythological stories does Dante use to describe his flight on the back of Geryon? How is the description of flight more nightmarish despite the details?
18. Eighth Circle: first ditch: panderers, seducers; whipped by demons; Jason. Second
ditch: flatterers; immersed in filth; Thais; this circle is called Maleborge
(evil pouches) probably in reference to the money-pocketing greed
linked with fraud. How do the sinners in this circle differ from the
sodomites and the usurers? Why is there a difference in behavior?
19. Eighth Circle (continued): third ditch; simonists; popes upside down in flaming holes;
how does Dante treat the sinners?; how is this scenario similar to the
Argenti scene, particularly in the way that Virgil responds to Dante’s
Outbursts?
20. Eighth Circle (continued): fourth ditch: soothsayers; heads on backwards; what is the
story of Tiresias? How does Dante react to the sight of the sinners in
this canto? And what is Virgil’s reaction to this?
21. Eighth Circle (continued): fifth ditch: grafters; boiling pitch; deceiving demons
(Malebranche); discuss whether the demons act appropriately in this
canto.
22. Eighth Circle (continued): fifth ditch (continued): Ciampolo of Navarre; deceived
demons; what happens to the demons in this canto?
23. Eighth Circle (continued): sixth ditch: hypocrites; leaden cloaks; two monks; Caiphas
and Annas; what is the punishment for Caiphas and Annas?; why or
why not is it appropriate?
24. Eighth Circle (continued): seventh ditch: thieves; fiery serpents; Vanni Fucci; what
imagery does Dante evoke to describe the change of Virgil’s angry
countenance in the beginning of this canto; how does this imagery
contradict the punishment for the sinners in this circle?
25. Eighth Circle (continued) seventh ditch (continued): transformation of thieves; what
happens to the thieves in this circle and why might this be appropriate
to their sin?
26. Eighth Circle (continued): eighth ditch: evil advisers; enflamed souls; Ulysses/Diomedes; What is the nature of Dante’s dreams? How could Ulysses have inspired the poet Tennyson in his poem “Ulysses?” Why doesn’t Dante speak to either Ulysees or Diomedes?
27. Eighth Circle (continued): eighth ditch (continued): soldier monk Guido da Montefeltro (in whose poem does Montefeltro’s words appear?) what is this spirit/sinner’s story?
28. Eighth Circle (continued): ninth ditch: dividers; mutilated; Muhammad, Bertran de Born; what was Bertran’s crime and how is his punishment appropriate? What relation is Ali to Muhammad? Find out how the relationship between Muhammed and Ali leads to a religious schism founding the sects of Sunnites and Shiites.
29. Eighth Circle: (continued): tenth ditch: falsifiers; ills of mind, body; alchemists; what is the story of the shade from Azezzo, whay does this lead to Dante’s assertion about all people from Siena? What is the story of Capocchio? How is Cappuchio related to Dante?
30. Eighth Circle: tenth ditch (continued): impersonators, counterfeiters, liars; Gianni Schicchi. How does Dante react to the events surrounding the brawl between Schicchi and Sinon? How does Virgil react to Dante’s reaction?
31. Towering Giants: Dante and Virgil lowered into pit; Nimrod: why is his punishment appropriate?; Ephialtes and Anteus: why are they punished; frozen Cocytus: how does Dante feel about the way he was moved to the floor of hell?
32. Ninth Circle: traitors. Caina: traitors to kin; ice up to neck, heads down. Antenora: traitors to city; faces upward; why does Dante provide another invocation as he enters Cocytus? How does Dante treat Bocca? What does Dante’s treatment of Bocca reveal about the poet’s character?
33. Ninth Circle (continued): Ugolino: Was Ugolino guilty of cannibalism in life? Tolomea: traitors to guests; on backs, heads up; review Gaddo’s cry in line 69, to what is it reminiscent? What does Fra Alberigo mean when he refers to figs having been repaid with dates?
34. Ninth Circle (continued): Judecca (in Dante’s time this was a word for Jewish ghettos, what does this reveal?): traitors to benefactors; under ice, except for Satan; Judas, Brutus, and Cassius; To what does Lucifer’s three faces refer? Dante leaves this last canto at dawn before Easter Sunday: why is this significant? What do the stars symbolize?
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