The episode of Francesca and Paolo, the first in which Dante encounters someone punished in hell for their sins in the Inferno, presents a challenge:...

The Divine Comedy is a fourteenth-century
epic poem written by the popular Italian poet . The poem is separated into three parts:
Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and
Paradiso (Heaven). In the first part, Dante, together with his dear friend
and guide Virgil, goes on a journey through the Nine Circles of Hell, where he meets the sinners
and witnesses their punishments. Here, Dante makes a very interesting distinction between two
different versions of himself: Dante the Poet and Dante the Pilgrim.

While
both the Poet and the Pilgrim are, essentially, the same person, Dante makes sure to tell us
that there are several key differences between the two characters. Thus, Dante the Poet is very
rational, concise, and sometims even ruthless. He is the one who describes the sinners'
punishments and the one who tells us how Dante the Pilgrim behaves on his journey. Dante the
Pilgrim, on the other hand, is rather emotional and compassionate, and he often feels sorry for
the sinners'...