Dante’s Inferno Study Questions
Canto 1
1. How old is Dante when he realizes he has strayed from the true path?
2. In what season does the Inferno open?
3. Name the three animals blocking Dante's path.
4. Who arrives to help Dante find his way?
5. What is the hill called that Dante wants to climb?
Canto III
6. Who are the first souls in torment?
7. What is their sin? They were neither for good nor evil, but only for ________________.
8. Describe their punishment.
9. Abandon all _____________ Ye who _________________ ___________________.
10. Who is Charon?
Canto V
11. What is the name of the semi-bestial judge who assigns to each soul its eternal torment?
12. Name the nine souls Dante specifically mentions being in Circle 2.
13. The sinners of Circle 2 betrayed _________________.
14. In footnote 102 the translator writes that Dante thinks Francesca and Paolo add to each other’s
anguish in two ways. What are those two ways?
15. Virgil and Dante are entering the first level of Hell, dedicated to the sins of incontinence. What is the
definition of incontinence?
16. Dante talks to a couple swept up in their punishment in the second circle of Hell. What explanation
does Francesca give for the temptation that caused them to commit their sin (adultery) in the first
place?
Canto XI
17. The jumbled rocks were once a cliff which were shaken in an earthquake upon what occasion?
18. Why do the poets cower for shelter before entering Circle 7?
19. What pope's tomb does Dante find?
20. As Virgil and Dante prepare to move on it is two hours before sunrise on what day?
21. Anastasius II was pope for what years?
22. What schism occured during this time?
23. Dante probably confused Anastasius II with whom?
24. To whom did this emperor give communion?
25. What was his heresy?
26. Of the two sins of malice, why does God loathe fraud more than violence?
27. The first round below where Dante and Virgil are holds the souls of what sin?
Canto XVIII
28. Circle 8 holds whom?
29. Bolgia 1 holds what sinners?
30. Bolgia 2 holds what sinners?
31. Who drive the two lines of sinners in the first ditch?
32. What great Greek hero is in Bolgia 1?
33. What are the flatterers sunk in?
34. This substance is the true equivalent of what?
35. Name the two women Jason seduced and for which he is being punished.
Canto XXVI
36. Bolgia 8 holds whom?
37. These sinners are endlessly hidden in view by what?
38. Who are punished together within the great flame Dante encounters?
39. Virgil tells Dante to let Virgil speak to the sinners because they might scorn Dante. Why?
40. What do Ulysses and his men sight before their destruction in a storm?
Canto XXXIII
41. What two souls are together being punished?
42. Both are in Antenora because they committed what crime?
43. Dante and Virgil encounter Ugolino frozen in ice. What is Ugolino eating?
44. How does Ugolino spend all eternity? What is his food?
45. How did Ugolino and his "sons" die in Pisa?
46. The tower they were put in was called The Tower of __________________.
47. What is the name of the third round of Cocytus?
48. What type of treachery is this?
49. What is Friar Alberigo's body and Ser Branca d'Oria's body doing while their souls are in hell? Who
or what does Alberigo claim is controlling these bodies?
Canto XXXIV
50. Round 4 is called __________________.
51. What type of treachery is punished in this round?
52. Who is in the middle mouth of Satan?
53. What two souls are in the other two mouths of Satan?
54. What kind of animal's wings do Satan's wings resemble?
55. Ironically, Satan's perpetual flapping of wings in an attempt to escape only does what to him?
56. What is the temperature like in the center of hell?
General Discussion Questions
57. How does the law of contrapasso (retribution) work in the punishment of each sin?
58. Note that the sins encountered at the top of the slope are less grave than the ones at the bottom,
and the ones in between are arranged in a corresponding hierarchy in which more grave sins are
punished beneath less grave sins. Describe the ordering of sins in Dante’s versions of hell. Why do
you think Dante makes murder a lesser sin that flattering or hypocrisy? How does this fit with your
own moral or religious beliefs?
59. In Canto 26, The Evil Counselors, how does Dante’s account of the fate of Ulysses (Odysseus) differ
from that in The Odyssey? What has Ulysses done to deserve assignment to his particular position in
Hell?
60. Why do you think a frozen lake an appropriate place for the punishment of traitors in the lowest
circle of hell?