OVERVIEW

Amanda Clark is the Dean of the Library and Social Services at Whitworth University. She is an expert in library science and information services and publishes on architecture.

Questions for Reflection

• What is the significance of Dante’s lingering gaze at a member “of his own blood” in this malebolgia? Is Virgil’s insistence that they move on quickly a sign of insensitivity to the damned or to Dante? Or might there be moral danger in Dante’s tearful attention to his family member’s suffering?
• How does this canto continue the exploration of themes of vengeance and vendetta begun in the previous canto?
• Why would alchemy be a sin of fraud rather than an act of violence against nature and art? Of allll of the sins of the malebolgia why is falsification presented as the most grievous?