DEATH OF THE SOUL IN ANTÌCLO BY GIOVANNI PASCOLI

Abstract

The father’s death and the tragedy caused by death of other family members is one of the most frequent themes in the Pascoli’s poetry. Because of that, interpretations are focused on Pascoli’s private life as a motive for writing about death. And it is true that Pascoli was the kind of poet whose pain marked his poetry, but then suddenly he published Poemi conviviali. Finally, in the poem Antìclo he speaks of death as liberation and a way of completely forgetting this world possible only by the death of the soul. The death of the body is not enough for Pascoli anymore. His idea of the death of the soul is opposed not only to the Christian tradition, but also to the image of the Ancient greek heroes – after death they were not losing all connections with this world and even dying they seemed immortal.