Teachings From “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” by Hans Christian Andersen

  They say that Hans Christian Andersen was the son of a shoemaker and a washerwoman and that this marked him forever. Indeed, his humble origins allowed him to make contact with the underbelly of society and understand the deepest recesses of the human being. During one period of his life, he even had to beg. He found shelter in his imagination to escape this unfortunate reality. An avid reader and endowed with an exceptional artistic capacity, Anderson managed to publish his first poem at the age of twenty. It was entitled The Dying Child. As a matter of fact,…