Anticlaudianus Literary Elements

Ancient philosophical writing on the creation on humanity

The action takes place in the distant past in an unnamed location.

The action is told from the perspective of a third-person objective point of view.

The tone and mood in the book is a neutral one.

The protagonist is Nature and the antagonist is represented by the first version version of man created by Nature.

The conflict is presented as being between the need to reach perfection and the idea of decay.

The story reaches its climax when the first human soul is created.

At the beginning of the story, it is mentioned how Nature failed to create a perfect human being. This is later used to foreshadow the later failed attempts which will be described in the book.

Nature claims at the begining of the story that attaining perfection is the only way through which someone can be happy. This is quickly proven to be an understatement when the narrator describes a large number of beings that are not perfect yet are extremely happy and content with their life.

The main allusion we find here is that Nature is not perfect and that only God can achieve perfection in the true sense.

The most important image is that of the sky, often described in the book. The characters who live on Earth often look towards the sky when they are in trouble. Because of this, the sky is used here to represent the possibility of achieving an ideal.

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A parallel is drawn here between the personified Nature and God. This parallelism is an extremely important one and it has the purpose of transmitting the idea that Nature is just as powerful and influential as God.

The personified Nature is used here as a general term thorough which the narrator transmits the idea that everyone has the power to create.

We have a personification in the sentence "and Nature sculpted everything to be perfect and sing praise to its genius".