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.
"The Divine Comedy". Dante Alighieri(1265-1321).
1) The action of the novel takes place in 1300, in the Forest of Darkness or Forest of Error, on Good Friday, and ends the following Thursday. The forest symbolizes the materialism of people living on Earth. At the top of a hill, Dante sees a light representing the hope of the resurrection of Christ. When he attempts to climb toward the light, a leopard, lion, and a wolf—which symbolize human iniquity—block his way.
The spirit of poet Virgil comes in and rescues him. Virgil escorts him out of the Forest by another route. This alternate route leads first through Hell .
After the Forest of Darkness, Dante proceeds through Hell and Purgatory, to finally ascends into Heaven.
2) The character of this setting -CANTO IV- which is the further side of Acheron, is represented by the poet Virgil who takes Dante into Limbo, the First Circle of Hell, where the spirits of the people who lived virtuously but without Christianity stayed .
The Limbo is a place on the edge of hell for the people who are not saved even though they did not sin. The first circle of hell -Dante's Limbo- is the place where non-Christian adults and unbaptized infants stayed.
