Home › Reading schedules › Dante's Inferno

Reading schedule · Grades 9–12

Dante's Inferno in 6 Weeks: A Reading Schedule

A six-week plan for reading Inferno by Dante, one section a week. Each week gives the reading, a short summary of what happens, three discussion questions and the escape room that goes with it. For grades 9–12, in class or at home.

Pacing

Rhetoric-stage students (grades 9–12) can read a section a week independently, with time to annotate and to write. The questions suit seminar discussion or short written responses, and the escape room makes a quick check on the reading before the conversation or the essay. Some sections are much longer than others, so look ahead and give the heaviest weeks extra time.

Each week ends with an escape room on that week's reading: seven self-checking locks that run in any browser, with no logins, and progress is saved, so a room can be finished another day. Every room has free taster locks to try, and members can open them all.

Print this schedule Escape rooms on Dante's Inferno

Week 1: Cantos 1–6

Read: Cantos 1–6

Lost in a dark wood and threatened by three beasts, Dante is rescued by the poet Virgil, sent at the request of heavenly ladies. They pass through the gate of hell, see the souls who never took a side, cross the river with Charon, visit Limbo and the great poets, meet Minos and the lovers in the storm, and pass Cerberus and the gluttons.

Discussion questions

1. Why is Virgil a fitting guide for Dante?
2. Why are the souls who never took a side placed where they are?
3. How does Dante react to the story of the lovers, and why?

Escape room: Through the Gate (lockedlessons.com/rooms/inferno-cantos-1-6/)

Week 2: Cantos 7–12

Read: Cantos 7–12

Dante sees the misers and spendthrifts and hears Virgil speak about Fortune, then crosses the Styx past the angry souls with the boatman Phlegyas. The gates of Dis are barred until a messenger from heaven opens them; among the heretics he meets Farinata and Cavalcante, Virgil explains the plan of hell, and they pass the Minotaur and the centaurs by the river of blood.

Discussion questions

1. Why can Virgil not open the gates of Dis alone?
2. What does the meeting with Farinata show about the politics of Dante's Florence?
3. How does Virgil's plan of hell help us understand the order of sins?

Escape room: The Burning City (lockedlessons.com/rooms/inferno-cantos-7-12/)

Week 3: Cantos 13–17

Read: Cantos 13–17

In the wood of those who took their own lives Dante hears Pier delle Vigne and sees spendthrifts hunted by hounds. On the burning sand he sees Capaneus, learns of the Old Man of Crete and the rivers of hell, meets his old teacher and three Florentines, and rides down on Geryon.

Discussion questions

1. Why are the souls in the wood turned into trees?
2. How does Dante treat his old teacher, and what does that tell us?
3. What does the Old Man of Crete suggest about human history?

Escape room: The Wood and the Sand (lockedlessons.com/rooms/inferno-cantos-13-17/)

Week 4: Cantos 18–23

Read: Cantos 18–23

In Malebolge, the ditches of fraud, Dante sees seducers whipped by devils, churchmen who sold holy things and seers with their heads turned backwards, and hears the story of Mantua. Among the grafters a sinner from Navarre tricks the devils with hooks, Dante and Virgil escape, and they find the hypocrites in their heavy cloaks.

Discussion questions

1. How do the punishments in these ditches fit the sins?
2. Why does Dante place churchmen in hell?
3. What is comic about the episode with the devils, and why might Dante include comedy here?

Escape room: The Evil Ditches (lockedlessons.com/rooms/inferno-cantos-18-23/)

Week 5: Cantos 24–29

Read: Cantos 24–29

After a hard climb Dante sees the thieves among serpents, Vanni Fucci and the centaur Cacus, and strange changes of shape. Ulysses and Diomedes burn in one flame and Ulysses tells of his last voyage, Guido da Montefeltro tells of the pope's false pardon, and they pass the sowers of discord and the falsifiers.

Discussion questions

1. Why is Ulysses in hell, and does Dante admire him all the same?
2. What does Guido's story say about repentance?
3. Which punishment in this section seems most fitting?

Escape room: Tongues of Flame (lockedlessons.com/rooms/inferno-cantos-24-29/)

Week 6: Cantos 30–34

Read: Cantos 30–34

Among the falsifiers Master Adam and Sinon quarrel, and giants stand round the pit. In the frozen lake of Cocytus traitors are held in the ice, Count Ugolino tells his story, Fra Alberigo reveals a strange fate, and at the centre Lucifer, with three faces, is frozen fast; Dante and Virgil climb past him and come out to see the stars.

Discussion questions

1. Why is the deepest part of hell ice rather than fire?
2. How should we feel about Ugolino?
3. Why does the journey end with the stars?

Escape room: The Frozen Lake (lockedlessons.com/rooms/inferno-cantos-30-34/)

Nothing in this schedule is quoted from any translation, so it can sit beside whichever one your class reads.