Respond to the questions for each assigned Canto. You may give the shortest response reasonable to show your understanding. Questions about “What,” for example, may take only a word or phrase, while “Why” questions may take a sentence or two. Some questions have multiple parts to answer. Adjust the length of your answers to the nature of the questions asked.
Canto 3
What kind of a city (or “polis” – like Indianapolis) is Hell?
What do you make of the Neutrals, and why is their fate important?
What is the punishment for the sinners who “undecided stood but for themselves? And how is does it fit the sin?
Why are the dead sinners so eager to cross the river?
Why does Dante faint?
Canto 4
Here we arrive at the natural home of Virgil and his pagan colleagues. How are they punished? Why is this fitting to Dante? (1 pt)
What is the attitude of the pagan poets toward Dante? (1 pt)
How does Dante negotiate the tension between his debt to Virgil (and fervent admiration for him) with their being eternally damned? (there is no Court of Appeals for Hell’s residents). (1 pt)
How does (how can) Dante respond to their invitation “to join their ranks”? (1 pt)
Canto 5
If the punishment is supposed to fit the crime, why do you suppose the lustful are located in Hell’s upper regions?
Who is the judge who assigns sinners to their places in Hell? And what method does he use to show them how far down they must descend?
What does Virgil tell Minos to convince him to let him pass with Dante?
Who are some of the famous illicit lovers (carnal malefactors) and how are they punished?
By what force of name does Dante implore them to come down, and why is it appropriate, given the nature of their sins?
Why is Dido here? Does Dante agree with Virgil on her location?
How does this canto “educate” readers in the arts, and what parallels did you notice in the Aeneid? (1 pt)
The lover who speaks with Dante here says she has “stained the world incarnadine” through her sins. What does she mean? How does it relate to Christian beliefs about forgiveness of sins? What was she reading when she first gave in to “desire”? (1 pt)
How does Dante react to Francesca? Remembering that he is a character on a quest, why might Dante-as-the-poet feel differently?
How does Francesca differ from Beatrice?
