Dante's Inferno

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“A Study in Infernal Art”

In this activity, students will use critical thinking to reflect on the ways Dante’s portrait of Hell has been interpreted by artists.

Dante’s Divine Comedy is one of the most illustrated books in history. Famous artists who produced illustrations for the Divine Comedy include Sandro Botticelli, John Flaxman, and Gustave Doré. Individual scenes from the Divine Comedy—and perhaps the Inferno in particular—have also inspired paintings and sculptures by artists such as William Blake, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Salvador Dali, Franz von Stuck, and Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux—among many, many others. In this activity, you will conduct online research and pick one visual artwork illustrating a scene from Dante’s Inferno and then create a short presentation in which you give an analysis of 200-300 words. You may work individually or in pairs. Consider these questions students should then consider:

• What scene does the artwork represent?
• What medium is the artist using?
• When was the piece created? What inspired the artist to depict this scene?
• What choices does the artist make in adapting the scene to their chosen medium?
• How does this artwork influence your interpretation of the scene from Dante?

After completing your analysis, present your conclusions to the class. This should lead to class discussion on Dante’s impact on the visual arts as well as the relationship between literature and the visual arts in general.

Teaching Suggestion: Show students some examples of how artists have illustrated Dante’s Inferno before having them choose their piece. Introduce some basic concepts from art history, highlighting for example the different styles of Western art and how each of them had their own way of interpreting Dante.

Differentiation Suggestion: To encourage student agency and for students with artistic abilities, consider an alternative approach to the assignment that allows students to create their own visual representation of a scene from Dante’s Inferno; these students may provide their descriptions and explanations aloud when they present their artwork to the class.

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. In Dante’s Inferno, the contrapasso is the central principle that determines the punishments of Hell, ensuring that the punishment of each sinner suits their sin.

• How does the contrapasso reflect Dante’s philosophy of sin and punishment? (topic sentence)
• Explore three examples of the contrapasso in practice, highlighting how each punishment relates to the sinner’s actions in life.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, reflect on the ironic nature of the contrapasso and what it says about the nature of sin.

2. Dante’s choice to write his Divine Comedy in vernacular Italian instead of Latin was extremely significant, forever transforming Italy and Italian literature.

• Why might have Dante chosen to write his Divine Comedy in vernacular Italian? (topic sentence)
• Discuss Dante’s reasons for using the vernacular Italian rather than the learned Latin in his poem, using specific passages and episodes from the Inferno to illustrate why this choice was better suited to Dante’s subject.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, evaluate how Dante’s language related to the overarching themes of his work.

3. Even though Dante encounters many kinds of characters in Hell, he spends the bulk of the poem conversing with Italian contemporaries.

• How does Dante’s Inferno reflect on contemporary Italian life and politics? (topic sentence)
• Analyze three examples of Dante’s conversations with contemporary Italian figures during his tour of Hell. What issues do they discuss?
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, evaluate why Dante may have chosen to devote so much of his description of Hell to contemporary Italian life and politics.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. Consider the inscription over the gates of Hell, especially the assertion that “JUSTICE MOVED MY HIGH MAKER” (3.4). What is the overall function of Hell in Dante’s universe? More specifically, what role does justice play in Hell? How does this infernal justice relate to divine love and human free will?

2. Reflect on the “relay of grace” underlying Dante’s Inferno, in which Mary instructs Lucia to instruct Beatrice to send Virgil to rescue Dante’s soul by taking him through Hell and Purgatory. What does this “relay” reveal about the structure and laws of Dante’s universe? Why does Mary not intervene directly? Why is the Florentine Beatrice, rather than an angel or saint, chosen to play such an important role in Dante’s salvation? Why is Virgil chosen for the role of Dante’s guide?

3. Dante’s Inferno, like the Divine Comedy in general, is pervaded by triadic structures. These include the three major divisions of Hell (the circles of incontinence, violence, and fraud), Dante’s three heavenly sponsors (Mary, Lucia, and Beatrice), and even the terza rima Dante used for his work. Why are threes so significant in the poem? What other triadic structures exist in Catholic ideology? How does the triadic form of the poem reflect its meaning?

Multiple Choice and Long Answer Questions create ideal opportunities for whole-text review, exams, or summative assessments.

Multiple Choice

1. Who sends Virgil to guide Dante?

A) The female wolf

B) God

C) Saint Lucia

D) Beatrice

2. Why are many of the demons of Hell, including Charon and Phlegyas, angry when they see Dante?

A) Because living souls should not be in Hell

B) Because demons are always angry

C) Because Dante’s guide Virgil is their enemy

D) Because Dante is an enemy of Satan

3. Which quote best represents the emotion shared by the residents of Limbo?

A) “[…] without hope we live in desire.”

B) “ABANDON EVERY HOPE, YOU WHO ENTER.”

C) “While one spirit said this, the other was weeping so that for pity I fainted as if I were dying, and I fell as a dead body falls.”

D) “How then I became frozen and feeble, do not ask, reader, for I do not write it, and all speech would be insufficient.”

4. What does Dante mean when he instructs his reader to “gaze on the teaching that is hidden beneath the veil of the strange verses” (Canto 9, Lines 62-63)?

A) To remember that Hell is not literally real, but only an allegory

B) Not to take his poem seriously

C) To look for the meaning of his poem beyond the surface level

D) To reject all conventional teachings about God and Christianity

5. How does the soul of Farinata demonstrate his pridefulness and short-sightedness?

A) He tries to steal Dante’s money so he can use it to buy power.

B) He remains pointlessly fixated on his reputation in Florence.

C) He longs to rise to a position of power in Hell.

D) He is the only soul in Hell who cannot see the future.

6. Why is fraud the worst sin?

A) Because fraud is reversed for God and the angels

B) Because fraud abuses humanity’s God-given intellect

C) Because fraud inevitably leads to violence

D) Because fraud breaks the covenant with Abraham

7. Why are blasphemers, sodomites, and usurers punished alongside the violent?

A) Because of a very ancient bureaucratic error

B) Because God ran out of space in the circles of the incontinent

C) Because their incontinence is considered venial

D) Because their actions were considered violent against God and Nature

8. Which literary device is Dante using when he compares the tree-imprisoned soul of Pier della Vigna to “a green log […] burnt at one end” that “from the other […] drips and sputters as air escapes” (Canto 13, Lines 40-42)?

A) Simile

B) Personification

C) Hyperbole

D) Parable

9. Why do Dante and Virgil willingly mount the Geryon, the “beast with the pointed tail”?

A) To ride him on a flight deeper into hell

B) To kill it and pass through the waterfall

C) To soar above the limits of the Inferno  

D) To save themselves from the burning sand

10. Why is Dante so upset to see Brunetto Latini in Hell?

A) Latini was his lover.

B) Latini was his teacher.

C) Latini never sinned.

D) Latini was a priest.

11. Which quote best illustrates Dante’s use of humor?

A) “Consider your sowing: you were not made to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.”

B) “I did not die and I did not remain alive: think now for yourself, if you have wit at all, what I became, deprived of both.”

C) “They made left face on the bank; but first each had bit his tongue toward their leader, as a salute, and he of his ass had made a trumpet.”

D) “In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself in a dark wood, for the straight way was lost.”

12. What does Virgil mean when he tells Dante that “one does not gain fame sitting down on cushions” (Canto 24, Line 47)?

A) That fame is so hard to achieve that it is better to remain obscure

B) That sitting down is a sign of wickedness

C) That they should continue their journey even though Dante is tired

D) That everybody should live an ascetic lifestyle

13. What does Guido da Montefeltro mean when he says to Dante "but since never from this depth has any one returned alive, if I hear the truth, without fear of infamy I answer you" (Canto 26, Lines 61-66)?

A) That since nobody returns from Hell, his words will never reach the living

B) That he hopes Dante will tell the world about him when he returns from Hell

C) That since Dante is in Hell, he must be dead already

D) That he does not trust Virgil because he has been dead for too long

14. Which feature distinguishes the landscape of Caina?

A) Fire

B) Ice

C) Tar

D) Swamp

15. What name does Dante use for the deepest part of Hell?

A) Caina

B) Judecca

C) Inferno

D) Purgatorio

Long Answer

Compose a response of 2-3 sentences, incorporating text details to support your response.

1. In his interactions with the souls of the dead, how does Dante generally characterize his native Florence?

2. What is the contrapasso and what role does it play in Dante’s Inferno?