DANTE’S INFERNO Canto I-III

DARK WOOD Vague on purpose This helps communicate the disorientation of our narrator Two very important things are communicated in this section We understand knowledge to be a learning process And we identify with our narrator This section is symbolic of a time in ones life in which one needs guidance to keep from losing the “good way” This is sort of “meandering forest”

VIRGIL Narrator’s guide Dante uses Virgil’s Aneid to shape his epic “Inferno” Shapes his own version of the afterlife – Hell in particular Virgil represents human reason He causes Dante to begin to see things logically as opposed to emotionally

THREE BEASTS Leopard – immoderate desires, Flattering Lion – violence She wolf – fraud Inspiration for the beasts comes from the biblical passage prophesying the destruction of those who refuse to repent of the sins “wherefore a lion out of the wood hath slain them, a wolf in the evening hath spoiled the, a leopard watcheth for their cities: every one that shall go out thence shall be taken, because their transgressions are multiplied, their rebellions strethened” – Jeremiah 5:6

STRAIGHT WAY Dante says he has lost the “straight way” We can relate to the protag by imagining many possible meanings for this deviation from the “strait way” The thought is that abandonment of the “straight way” often indicates alienation from God Dante views this veering as a metaphor for the moral and societal problems of this world

GREY HOUND First of several prophecies in the poem A savior figure who will come to redirect the world to the path of truth and virtue

AENEAS AND PAUL Compares himself negatively to two men who were in fact granted the privilege of journeying through the afterlife Paul was transported the the “third Heaven (2 Corinthians 12:2) Aeneas visits the underworld in book 6 of the Aeneid

THREE WOMEN Our story begins “in medias res” – in the middle of things Virgil explains in canto 2 that he was summoned to Dante’s aid by Beatrice Dante’s lover Beatrice states that she was summoned by Lucia (St. Lucy) Martyred and often associated with light and vision She stabbed out her eyes to keep herself pure Mary Mother of Jesus

Canto 2-3

COWARDS We are at an in between place These souls are neither good enough for heaven nor are they bad enough for Hell fence-sitters, wafflers, opportunists, and neutrals--are the angels who refused to choose between God and Lucifer Dante used the following verse from the Bible as inspiration for this Revelation 3:16: "But because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth."

ABANDON ALL HOPE The Gate of Hell Once you pass through the gate, the hope of turning back is very slim Dante’s Hell is a creation not of evil and the devil, but rather of his Christian God He establishes this with his warning “Abandon every hope all you who enter” This communicates that Hell is intended to be punishment for sinners

CHARON Charon is the pilot of a boat that transports the dead--newly arrived from the world above--across the waters into the lower world Dante gets inspiration for this from the Aeneid Aeneas gets ferried across by Charon At first Charon objects to taking a living man on his boat However, in each story, the protagonist's guide-- the Sibyl for Aeneas, Virgil for Dante--provides the proper credentials for gaining passage on Charon's boat