Inferno, Canto 11

The Text of Canto 11 (Open PDF)

Summary

While the Poets pause for a little on the brink of the descent to the Seventh Circle, Virgil explains to Dante the arrangement of Hell.

The Prepatory Lecture

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Questions for Reflection

• In this canto we pause in the journey to listen to Virgil as he describes the moral landscape of hell. What are some surprising details about its arrangement? Why do you think Dante the Poet has designed his Inferno in such a way?
• Why are sins of Fraud considered morally worse than those of incontinence and of violence? In what ways does Dante’s arrangement challenge some of our contemporary moral assumptions? Are there aspects of Dante’s moral vision that we should reclaim?
• What are the three types of violence that Virgil discusses (11.31ff) and how are they different from the vice of wrath in circle 5? Is this a credible account of violence as forms of malice?
• The pilgrim inquires the most about the sin of usury (or loaning money at exploitatively high interest rates). Dante’s concern is related to Florence’s reputation as a major banking centre in the Italian peninsula. How is usury an act of violence against God and nature (11.94-111)? What moral challenge does this message pose to us who live and work in our global economy?

 Canto 11, © Jan Hearn

The Images

The only image here is that of Hell itself.  Dante’s classification of sins is based chiefly on Aristotle, with a little assistance from Cicero. Aristotle divided wrong behaviour into three main kinds:

• Incontinence (uncontrolled appetite);
• Bestiality (perverted appetite);
• Malice or Vice (abuse of the specifically human faculty of reason).

Cicero declared that all injurious conduct acted by either

• Violence or
• Fraud.

Combining these two classifications, Dante obtains three classes of sins:

• Incontinence;
• Violence (or Bestiality);
• Fraud (or Malice).

These he subdivides and arranges in Seven Circles: four of Incontinence, one of Violence, and two of Fraud.

To these purely ethical categories of wrong behaviour he, as a Christian, adds two Circles of wrong belief:

• Unbelief (Limbo) and
• Misbelief (the Heretics)

This makes 9 Circles in all. Finally, he adds the Vestibule of the Futile, who have neither faith nor works, this, not being a Circle, bears no number.

Thus we get the 10 main divisions of Hell. In the other books
of the Comedy we shall find the same numerical scheme of 3, made up by subdivision to 7; plus 2 ( =9); plus 1 ( = 10). Hell, however, is complicated by still further subdivision.

• Circle of Violence is divided into 3 Rings;
• Circle of Fraud Simple into 10 Bowges; 
• Circle of Fraud Complex into 4 Regions.

So, Hell contains a grand total of 24 divisions.  See map to the left (or above on a mobile).

Mark Vernon's Lecture