Divine Comedy-I: Inferno Lesson Plan

What is the significance of the Old Man of Crete in Canto XIV? What does he represent, and how does mentioning him deepen readers' understanding of the world of The Divine Comedy?

In the Old Man of Crete, Dante draws upon a variety of pagan and Christian symbols to represent what he perceived to be the general state of Christendom. However, the Old Man is an esoteric amalgam of these different symbols, and students are not likely to have picked up on them on a first reading. When asking this question, the teacher should guide students through the different symbolic components of the Old Man—including his two legs, the materials of which he's made, and his positioning in...