Inferno 11

Study Guide Questions for Canto Eleven

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

Indifference

Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)

1. What did Virgil tell Dante was “down in the pit below these rocks?”

2. Who are the “three persons force is used against?”

3. What would be an example of a kind of force used against the first person?

4. What would be an example of a kind of force used against the second person?

5. What would be an example of a kind of force used against the third person?

6. According to Virgil, what are the two ways “fraud…can be used” against someone?

7. What are some characteristic kinds of activities which relate to the “latter type of fraud?”

8. What are some characteristic kinds of activities which relate to the “other fraud?”

9. How, according to the “Philosopher,” does God feel about sins of “incontinence?”

10. According to Virgil, what did the “Philosopher” teach in his book, Physics, about “Nature?”

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

1. Why might the rings/circles of Hell be getting smaller as they continue to descend? What are we meant to take away from that idea?

2. What does it mean to say “fraud’s a sin peculiar to mankind” and why would God hate it more for that reason?

3. Why did Virgil explain the next three rings of Hell to Dante prior to descending into them?

4. What should be inferred about the nature of the sin of violence from the fact that it is subdivided into three sections?

5. Virgil said in the first round (division) of the ring of violence that “spoilers and beasts of prey are tortured there.” Who are the spoilers and who are the beasts of prey?

6. In the second round (division) of the ring of violence there are, among others, those who “wept for things that should have brought them joy.” What might be an example of this sort of thing?

7. What does it mean to “scorn Nature and her generous goods” as some of those in the third round of the ring of violence did?

8. What distinction is Virgil making between the two different kinds of Fraud (rings eight & nine)?

9. What dilemma does Dante pose to Virgil and how does Virgil answer him?

10. Why did Virgil say that the sins of “incontinence” (rings two through five) offend God less than the sins of lower Hell (rings six through nine)?

11. What did Dante mean by saying, “no less than knowledge, doubt is a delight?” Why would that be?

12. What does it mean to say “human industry is the grandchild of God?”

13. What does it mean to say that the “usurer” despises “Nature and her follower?”

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

1. Dante’s Inferno suggests a distinction between sins of upper Hell (all sins of “incontinence”) and the sins of lower Hell (sins of the will) and argues that God is more displeased with the latter than the former. Do you agree or disagree with this idea? Do you think there is any relationship between the sins of upper and lower hell or are they completely different in nature? Explain your answer carefully.

2. Dante/Virgil said that Nature is a teacher. Roughly speaking, it may be argued that there are three places people can seek after truth: the natural world, the self (internal powers of reasoning), and special (supernatural) revelation. What kind of things can we learn from each of these sources? In other words, what kind of learning properly proceeds from each of them? Do they each have limitations as to what they can (or do) teach us? Are they all of equal importance as teachers? Are they all interconnected?

Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)

1. Read Psalm 19:1-6 and relate it to Virgil’s claim that Nature is a “teacher.”