Prepare for Next Week
View more in A Hell of a City: Dante’s Inferno on the Road to Rome | Intro: From the dark wood to Rome
Read Inferno 5
Reading Questions meeting 2: Inferno 5.
1. What is the sin punished in the second circle of hell, and what is the punishment inflicted on the damned? What is the relation between the sin and the punishment, that is, the significance of the contrapasso?
2. Identify and discuss the group of sinners encountered in vv. 52-72. How does Dante characterize them as a class?
3. Identify and discuss the canto’s striking similes drawn from bird life? How do they express the significance of the episode?
4. Analyze the first part of Francesca’s speech (ll. 88-108). What are some of the key rhetorical figures and expressions that reveal Francesca’s personality? What are the sources for her statements for her love in line 100 or in line 103? How does her speech reveal something about why she finds herself in Hell? Where did Francesca go wrong?
5. Analyze Francesca’s answer to Dante’s request that she recount the how and when of her knowing ‘dubbiosi desiri’ in ll. 127-137? What is the story of Lancelot, Guinevere, and Galehaut that she and Paolo were reading? What is the relation between that story and the situation in which Francesca finds herself? How does Francesca’s story of reading together with Paolo that led to their sin and death illuminate the nature of their error?
6. What is Dante the pilgrim’s response to Francesca’s tale in ll. 109-120 and 141-142 and how do you account for it? What is the relationship between the reaction of Dante the poet and the reaction of Dante the pilgrim to Francesca?
