Dante's Inferno

Question	Answer
What state is Dante the pilgrim in when he "enters the wood" and starts his journey?	Confused and fearful
Why does he need and want Virgil as his guide through Hell?	Because he is lost and because Virgil knows the way
Who resides in Limbo, canto 4?	Those who were worthy but lived before christianity and/or without baptism. Homer, Horace, Ovid, Lucan.
Why is the story of Paolo and Francesca (c. 5) so important to Dante that he swoons upon hearing it?	He has sympathy because their love, though wrong, was so beautiful. He understands the longing.
What is contrapasso and what is one example of it from the text?	'Contrapasso' or counter-penalty is the law of poetic justice in the Inferno whereby sinners are punished according to the weight and nature of their sins. One example is The Gluttons in canto 6 that are punished by cold and filthy rain and tormented by Cerberus a dog who eats everything
For what sins does Dante punish Ulysses (Odysseus) in his own tale of the afterlife, inferno? In doing do, how does he recast Ulysses' epic strength as weakness in his own frame?	the ambush of the Trojan Horse & the theft of Pallas Athena's statue at the Palladium. Ulysses is punished for his thirst for knoweledge, for abandoning his family.

Resource summary

	Created by Winston Schultz about 8 years ago