English 2332

English 2332

World Literature I

Dante, The Inferno

Mary Anne Andrade, Ph.D.

1 Some of the sinners in the Vestibule (just inside the gates of hell) are

A Citizens who didn’t vote in Florentine politics

B The angels that took Satan’s side in the war in heaven

C The angels who couldn’t make up their minds who to support, God or Satan.

2 Minos’s most distinguishing characteristic is

A his fiery eyes

B his tale

C his three heads

3 Cerberus’s most distinguishing characteristic is

A his fiery eyes

B his tale

C his three heads

4 Charon’s most distinguishing characteristic is

A his fiery eyes

B his tale

C his three heads

5 The bodies of water in Inferno are in this order:

A Styx, Acheron, Phlegethon, Cocytus

B Acheron, Phlegethon, Styx, Cocytus

C Acheron, Styx, Phlegethon, Cocytus

6 Who determines the appropriate circle for each sinner?

A Charon

B Minos

C Cerberus

7 The Centaurs guard which position in the Inferno?

A Circle VIII

B City of Dis

C Circle VII

8 The burning tomb is the punishment for

A Guido Calvacanti

B Farinata

C Ser Brunetto Latini

9 In what what circle do we find Odysseus (Ulysses)?

A Circle VIII

B Circle II

C Circle IX

10 In what circle do we find Homer?

A Circle VIII

B Circle II

C Circle I

11 In what circle do we find Achilles?

A Circle VIII

B Circle II

C Circle I

12 In what circle do we find Count Ruggieri?

A Circle VII

B Circle VIII

C Circle IX

‘O Tuscan, you who pass alive across

the fiery city with such seemly words,

be kind enough to stay your journey here.

Your accent makes it clear that you belong

Among the natives of the noble city

I may have dealt with too vindictively’

The speaker is

A Ruggieri

B Farinata

C Ciacco

“ I [Dante], know not if it was will or destiny

or chance, but as I walked among the heads,

I struck my foot hard in the face of one.

Weeping, he chided then: ‘Why trample me?

If you’ve not come to add to the revenge

of Montaperti, why do you molest me?’ ”

The sinner who responds to Dante in this passage is

A Bocca degli Abbate

B Ruggieri

C Ugolino

D Guido Cavalcanti

14 Snakes bite these sinners who burst into flames:

A Fortune tellers

B Sowers of Discord

C Thieves

D Grafters

‘O living being, gracious and benign,

who through the darkened air have come to visit

our souls that stained the world with blood, if He

who rules the universe were friend to us

then we should pray to Him to give you peace,

for you have pitied our atrocious state.’

The speaker is

A Francesca

B Ser Brunetto Latini

C Ciacco

D Ruggieri

‘There is no greater sorrow

than thinking back upon a happy time

in misery – and this your teacher knows.’

The speaker is

A Francesca

B Ser Brunetto Latini

C Ciacco

D Ruggieri

“I [Dante] said: ‘With all my strength I pray you, stay;

and if you’d have me rest awhile with you,

I shall, if that please him with whom I go.’

‘O son, . . . whoever of this flock

stops but a moment, stays a hundred years . . .

The sinner who responds to Dante in this passage is

A Francesca

B Ser Brunetto Latini

C Ciacco

D Guido Cavalcanti

‘ I [Dante] am alive, and can be precious to you

if you want fame,’ was my reply, ‘for I

can set your name among my other notes.’

And he to me:

I want the contrary;

So go away and do not harass me –‘

Your flattery is useless in this valley.’

The sinner who responds to Dante in this passage is

A Farinata

B Ruggieri

C Bocca degli Abbate

D Guido Cavalcanti

Then he began; ‘You want me to renew

Despairing pain that presses at my heart

Even as I think back, before I speak.

But if my words are seed from which the fruit

Is infamy for this betrayer . . .

You’ll see me speak and weep at once.

I don’t know who you are or in what way

You’ve come down here; and yet you surely seem –

From what I hear – to be a Florentine.’

The speaker is

A Francesca

B Bocca degli Abbate

C Farinata

C Ruggieri

20 Circle VII: The first round is peopled by

A Suicides

B Blasphemers

C Sodomites or homosexuals

D Murderers

21 The Wrathful and Sullen

A Push bolders around

B are immersed in a river of bubbling slime

C are stung by hornets and wasps

D are stuck in the river Cocytus

“These wretched ones, who never were alive,

Went naked and were stung again, again

By horseflies and by wasps that circled them

The insects streaked their faces with their blood,

Which, mingled with their tears, fell at their feet

Where it was gathered up by sickening worms.”

This is a description of sinners in

A Circle V

B On the shores of Acheron

C The Vestibule

D Circle IV

“But all those spirits, naked and exhausted,

had lost their color, and they gnashed their teeth

as soon as they heard [the] cruel words;

they execrated God and their own parents

and humankind, and then the place and time

of their conception’s seed and of their birth.

They they forgathered, huddled in one throng,”

A Circle V

B On the shores of Acheron

C The Vestibule

D Circle IV