Week Three: Cantos 11-15

 For the purposes of this discussion, we will follow the structure of Baylor's 100 Days of Dante to frame our discussion. Feel free to use whatever translation you have access to (more is better) to follow along with the poem.


Third Five Cantos: 11 - 15


The questions this week are adapted from the 100 days of Dante, Bishop Barron, and my own reading

I am linking here to a web resource for a conversational version of the text.


Thomas Hobbes: “Hell is truth seen too late.”

Some Prompts:

1) Do you have any problems with the way that hell appears to be laid out?  What is the organization scheme? Are sins really ranked? If they are ranked, by what measure?

2) What do we learn about the structure of sin in the layout of the seventh circle? Neighbor, self, and God are three kinds of violence. What are the relationships between each of these? Is there a way that we go from one to the other? 

3) Why is usury a sin against nature? This is Aristotelean, some of it survives to St. Thomas. How do we make money unnaturally in our own day? Does this description of sin condemn modern market economies?

4) Are all these beasts running around to remind us that we lose our human nature when we become violent? How is this different than the incontinent above? What is changing about us when we give into violence?

5) What happens to the bodies of the suicides at the last judgement? Why? What does this imply about life and how we can lose something if we don't embrace it as a gift? What insight do we get here about all sin?

6) What is so important here about retelling the golden age myth? What is different? Why is Dante changing things? Is there a hidden meaning?

7) How do humans try to make themselves eternal? Is there a way to do this well? What are the ways to do it poorly that explain how Bruno Latini earned his spot in hell? 

8) Why is it that these who are violent against nature are being punished? Who do they hurt besides themselves? What kind of hurt do they cause themselves? What is Dante's position on all of this? Does it make him sad to see such brilliant people in hell? 

9) In the 15th Canto, Dante accepts his fate that fortune would change in ways he can't control and that short of preserving his conscience he would be fine with this. What is Dante's understanding of fortune here? Can we incorporate such a concept into Catholic belief without trouble? What kind of trouble is this? 

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