The «Return» as a Platonic category in the Canti di Castelvecchio

While composing his collection of poems Canti di Castelvecchio, Pascoli developed his own original theory of the soul, the main foundation of which is Porphyry’s doctrine filtered through St. Augustine (descent or fall of the soul on earth, and its return to the heavenly homeland); of his beloved Augustine, however, Pascoli refuses to accept the association of soul and body. Indeed, that is a distinctive feature which separates his own religious thinking from Catholic orthodoxy. Elements drawn from medioplatonism and Plotinus also permeate other Pascolian poems, especially Rossini (from the Poemi Italici).

Keywords: Pascoli and Porphyry, Pascoli and St. Augustine, Pascoli’s theory of the soul, Pascoli’s poem Ov’è?, Pascoli’s poem Rossini.