Analyze the setting that Dante develops in Canto XXI. Examine how 1) the choices the author makes to describe the setting and 2)
the characters he places in this setting affect the reader's understanding of the Eighth Circle of Hell. Be sure to use specific details from the text to support your ideas.
In Canto IV of Dante Alighieri's Inferno, Dante starts to explore the first circle of Hell, called Limbo. This circle is described as the false heaven for those who can not worship the Christian religion. This allows readers to understand that people suspended in this first circle of Hell were not sinners and were placed in a circle of hell so as to maintain order, giving people a place to live after death. Dante uses widely acknowledged figures, such as Aristotle and Socrates to portray Limbo to readers. He makes that to show the place where they live with human wisdom but without God's light, emphasizing that they lived on earth as intellectuals in the field of human wisdom.
