Dec 4, 2008
“Animula” is written in irregularly rhyming iambic pentameter, with only one stanza break that separates the last six lines of the piece from the rest—almost as a brief litany. The title may have been suggested by a prayer of Hadrian to his soul, but T. S. Eliot began with his own adaptation of a line in Dante’s Purgatario XVI, “There comes from his hand, like a wayfarer…the simple soul.” Dante’s “anima” is compared to a seeker of God who is deflected by daily trifles and follies.
Almost like the questing hero described by mythology...
[The entire page is 1077 words long]
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