Week Six: Cantos 26 - 30

 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.

Sixth Five Cantos: 26 - 30


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

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

Some Prompts:

1) How do Roman poets change the stories of Greek Myths to suit their audience? Is there any Homer left in this telling of the Ulysses story? 

2) Why does this character inspire so many people in the Modern age? Does the character still inspire people today? What should a Catholic take from the damnation of Ulysses here? What is the moral? 

3) Is there a way that true knowledge differs from what Ulysses is seeking? What is true knowledge and how do we know it? What is the role of revelation in the discovery of true knowledge and why might that be? 

4) What are the reasons that someone might not want to be remembered? Is shame one of the only reasons? Is the duplicity of secret dealings being suggested here?  What is revealed in hell by this damnation that was not openly displayed on earth? 

5) What is this part about St. Francis trying to save a soul and losing to a daemon? Can trying to scheme against the church make you beyond intercession? 

6) Why might Dante, in Canto 28, be suggesting that poetry could be used in a destructive and a constructive way? What sort of challenge is Dante suggesting he took on when he stopped writing mundane poetry and aspired to the Comedy? 

7) What is ultimately going on in Inferno with the concept of Vendetta? If God is the only one who can dispense justice (without setting off more vendettas), then what insight does this give us about justice? Is Dante able to release himself from the family Vendetta that is demanded for the killing of Geri del Bello Alighieri?

8) In what ways does alchemy act as a crime against nature? What ways does it distort truth? Why is it so bad?

9) Why is counterfeiting so much worse than all the sins that we have passed so far? How does this create civil unrest? In what way is the modern world guilty of counterfeiting almost everything by separating the value and the price of everything? Do we live independent of nature to the point of absurdity? 

10) What role does water play in canto 30? There seems to be a baptism reference, a Lazarus and rich man reference, and I would even add a woman at the well reference to living water. What is going on with the unholy baptism, the drinking of water that distends a belly, and the unending thirst of the sinner here?

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