Inferno 10

Study Guide Questions for Canto Ten

If you are looking for the beginning of the study for Dante’s Inferno then you can go HERE for a brief introduction. At the bottom of the introduction you will find the links to each section of the study guide as it becomes available. If you would like to see the growing list of book studies available for free on this site you can go HERE. Enjoy!

Virtues/Vices/Great Ideas: (Find them in the Text)

Despair

Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)

1. What epithet (title) did Dante ascribe to Virgil when he first addressed him in this Canto?

2. What claim did Virgil say Epicurus had made concerning the soul?

3. What drew Farinata’s attention to Dante?

4. What did Farinata proclaim about Dante’s family?

5. What did the other man who appeared from out of Farinata’s tomb ask Dante?

6. What did Dante learn concerning what those in Hell are able to know about things in the world above?

7. What did Dante request that Farinata tell the other soul from his tomb?

8. What did Virgil tell Dante to do with the information he learned from Farinata?

Logic Questions: (Interpreting, Comparing/Contrasting, Reasoning)

1. Why are the lids not to be bolted onto the tombs until “The day of doom?”

2. Why would Virgil tell Dante to “make sure each word you utter counts” when speaking with Farinata?

3. Do you think Farinata’s words and behavior suggest he is sorry for his actions in life? Why or why not?

4. Why would Guido’s father have expected to see his son with Dante?

5. What should be inferred about Farinata from the fact that during the entire time the other man in the tomb was speaking he “never turned his neck, or bent his trunk, or changed his countenance?”

6. When Farinata said “Yet fifty times the moon will not re-burn…before you [Dante] find how hard that is to learn,” what did he mean?

7. Why would God allow the condemned souls to “see things far away” but not allow them to know what is happening now?

8. Dante was told by Virgil that the “sweet soul” whom he would meet later (Beatrice) would show him “the journey of [his] life.” What does this mean?

Rhetoric Questions: (The Analysis of Ideas in the Text)

1. Do you think people in Hell are sorry for the things they have done? Why or why not?

Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)

1. Read Joel 3:1-16. How does this passage help to make sense of Dante’s reference to the “valley of Jehosophat?”

2. Compare and contrast the rich man in Luke 16:19-31 to Farinata. What do you notice they have in common?