Analyze the setting that Dante develops in Canto IV. Examine how 1) the choices he makes to describe the setting and 2) the characters he places in this setting affect the reader's understanding of the First Circle of Hell, Limbo. Be sure to use specific details from the text to support your ideas.

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Ian Castaneda

English

1 April, 12:29

Analyze the setting that Dante develops in Canto IV. Examine how 1) the choices he makes to describe the setting and 2) the characters he places in this setting affect the reader's understanding of the First Circle of Hell, Limbo. Be sure to use specific details from the text to support your ideas.

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Clay Lynn · Answer 1

In Canto IV, Dante describes the setting as one with the lack of color, unclear and blurry "obscure, profound it was and nebulous". He calls it "The blind world" in which people or souls were not crying in pain or suffering, but just sighing. They were not treated as other sinners, their punishment was not having the love of God and that means a constant torture and agony. In this part of the book, Dante places characters such as Abel, Noah, Abraham and Moses to mention a few, all from the Bible, moreover all of them follow the commands of God in the earlier times, to make the reader understand the importance of Christianity, he states "And thou must know, that earlier than these - Never were any human spirits saved".

Dante also mentions people of arts and science, like Homer, Ovid, Horace, Socrates and Plato who are in castle that glows light. Other places such as gardens are inhabited by Roman and Greek heroes. None of whom learned the Word of God.

It is also mentioned that some of the souls in Limbo could actually to Heaven, if God decided so "the honourable name, That sounds of them above there in thy life, Wins grace in Heaven, that so advances them". Therefore, it is possible to leave Limbo. After this Circle everything becomes darker and scarier.