Animula: What the Simple Soul Knows, or “Living first in the silence after the viaticum”

Abstract

Among the similarities of Animula to The Cultivation of Christmas Trees is their fundamental form: both are essays. The essay-poem Animula traces changes in “the little soul.” It “progresses” from child-like to both offending and perplexed, thence to “irresolute and selfish, misshapen, lame, / Unable to fare forward or retreat.” It thus misses (out on) “the warm reality,” the good that is available to and for it, for it denies “the importunity of the blood.” The poem also suggests that “the little soul” comes to live first “after the viaticum,” the final words of the Last Rites, at that point sent on its “way,” its “journey,” born in and with death.