Commentary Inf V 118-120

In 1972 Georgia Nugent, then a student at Princeton, pointed out that Dante's question mimics the questions used by confessors to ascertain the nature of a penitent's sins. Here, we may reflect, Dante is behaving more like a priest in the so-called 'religion of Love' than like a Christian confessor. See the earlier discussion of confession in this canto, C.Inf.V.8.