Love, separated

Abstract

Through the analysis of some fragments of Thomas Stearns Eliot’s Ash Wednesday (specifically from sections I, II and VI), this article attempts to evince how the reconciliation of the human and the spiritual nature of love is here addressed through the theme of sublimation, related to the Stilnovo tradition and introduced by Dante in his early work, Vita Nova. The human being, the faithful speaker, the lover, is finally kept suspended, and even if in hope, left in a state of tension that does not reach a final fulfilment.