The Inferno is in many ways a uniting of past and present. It encompasses the historical, mythical, and biblical, and it unites them with the contemporary. Citing specific examples from all four groups, discuss how Dante Alighieri uses the former three to grant greater weight to contemporary Italian politics. How does he make his own hardships as affecting as those of Achilles and the Christian saints? How does he represent the more recent hardships of Italy?

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay about the time-line of The Inferno, which clearly spans three days and presumably begins on Good Friday, the anniversary Christ's death and descent to Hell. What do you think is Dante Alighieri's goal in coordinating his own harrowing of Hell with that of Jesus? What other references to Christ's descent to Hell are mentioned in the text? What occurs when Dante emerges from the pit, and how does this mirror Christ's emergence from his tomb?

Essay Topic 3

Because the realm of Hell in The Inferno is a bureaucratic location where souls are assessed and assigned punishments, sin takes on a quantifiable form. Write an essay about sin as object in the poem. How does sin become the only quantifiable commodity when a soul dies? How is the soul completely assessed based on the quantity of this sin on it? Cite examples from the text to illustrate how souls in Hell are entirely defined by their sins.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 241 words
(approx. 1 page at 300 words per page)

View a FREE sample

More summaries and resources for teaching or studying Divine Comedy.

View all Lesson Plans available from BookRags.

Copyrights