Giacomo Leopardi and the Roots of Existentialism

贾科莫·莱奥帕尔迪和存在主义的根源

• 批准号: 2732630
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Oxford
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2732630
• 关键词: Giacomo; Leopardi; Roots; Existentialism

The purpose of my research is double: first, to investigate the philosophical and literary background of Giacomo Leopardi (1798 - 1837), the most important Italian poet of the 19th century, as an anticipation of what would be called 'existentialism'; second, to demonstrate that Leopardi's pioneering reflection on existence shows intriguing parallels, and even direct connections, with the philosophical and cultural mindset of other European authors: in particular Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821 - 1881), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900) and Miguel de Unamuno (1864 - 1936). All of these authors problematised the notion of 'existence', paving the path to existentialism. This project subscribes to the current trend of creating a dialogue between Leopardi and the European context, and to the current interest in his work carried out by Leopardi Studies at Oxford. Many scholars have identified Leopardi as a "precursor" of existentialism (Luporini, 1938, 1980; Ruffilli, 1982 et alii), and the main reason for this identification lies in his Dialogo di Plotino e di Porfirio (Galimberti, 1977). In this text, Leopardi establishes an opposition between reason and life and introduces irrationalism into modernity for the first time. However, this line of inquiry is far from being fully developed. The project will investigate the two issues that most characterize existentialism: the struggle between reason and life and the religious problem. As for the former, Leopardi was the first to suggest the possibility of basing life on irrational decisions. Building on this, the other writers developed irrationalism, which would be an essential characteristic of existentialism. I will then explore the existence of God and religion, as the ground for any response to the problem of existence. The existence or non-existence of God are crucial notions for these authors. Indeed, existentialism is clearly divided into two opposing visions: an atheist one and a religious one (Sartre, 1946). Atheism and a tension toward religion both appear in Leopardi's works (Caracciolo, 1994), so that he could be considered at the origin of the two future lines of existentialism. I believe that not only would this work represent a step forward in Leopardi studies, but it would also be relevant to scholars of existentialism and philosophers of religion. This project, in fact, is essentially interdisciplinary and comparative. The timely novelty of this approach fits in a theoretical framework in which literary and philosophical studies are no longer separated fields. These authors are writers just as much as they are philosophers. Interdisciplinarity is therefore the only way of understanding both their literary value and the strength of their ideas.Nietzsche and Unamuno have read and quoted Leopardi in their works, whereas it remains uncertain whether Dostoyevsky read Leopardi. In the first case, I will make the most of the direct influence; in the second one, I will use the method of diffractive reading (Gragnolati, 2013), which has already been applied to Leopardi (Piperno, 2018; D'Intino, 2019). In this vein, I will start with a close reading of the most relevant passages of each author individually; then I will move on to a comparative reading of those passages and of the texts as a whole, keeping Leopardi at the epicentre of this constellation of authors and analysing the texts in chronological order, to eventually account for the 'diffraction' of ideas and terms from Leopardi onwards. Regarding the foreseeable conclusions, I expect to prove with close textual reading and accurate comparisons the hypothesis that the roots of what is now called 'existentialism' is to be found in Leopardi and in the other three authors, regarding both the struggle between reason and life (which has been a mere suggestion so far), and the religious problem (which is a complete novelty).

我的研究目的有双重：首先，调查 19 世纪最重要的意大利诗人贾科莫·莱奥帕尔迪（Giacomo Leopardi，1798 - 1837）的哲学和文学背景，作为对所谓“存在主义”的预期；其次，证明莱奥帕尔迪对存在的开创性反思与其他欧洲作家的哲学和文化思维方式有着有趣的相似之处，甚至直接联系：特别是费奥多尔·陀思妥耶夫斯基（Fyodor Dostoyevsky，1821 - 1881）、弗里德里希·尼采（Friedrich Nietzsche，1844 - 1900）和米格尔·德乌纳穆诺 (1864 - 1936)。所有这些作者都对“存在”的概念提出了问题，为存在主义铺平了道路。该项目顺应了当前在莱奥帕尔迪与欧洲背景之间建立对话的趋势，以及牛津大学莱奥帕尔迪研究中心目前对他的工作的兴趣。许多学者将莱奥帕尔迪认定为存在主义的“先驱”（Luporini，1938、1980；Ruffilli，1982等），而这种认定的主要原因在于他的《普洛蒂诺与波尔菲里奥的对话》（Galimberti，1977）。在这篇文本中，莱奥帕迪建立了理性与生活的对立，首次将非理性主义引入现代性。然而，这一调查路线还远未得到充分发展。该项目将调查存在主义最具特色的两个问题：理性与生活之间的斗争以及宗教问题。至于前者，莱奥帕尔迪是第一个提出将生活建立在非理性决定之上的可能性的人。在此基础上，其他作家发展了非理性主义，这将是存在主义的基本特征。然后我将探讨上帝和宗教的存在，作为对存在问题的任何回应的基础。上帝的存在或不存在对于这些作者来说是至关重要的概念。事实上，存在主义显然分为两种对立的观点：无神论者和宗教者（萨特，1946）。无神论和对宗教的紧张都出现在莱奥帕尔迪的作品中（卡拉乔洛，1994），因此他可以被认为是未来存在主义两条路线的起源。我相信这项工作不仅代表了莱奥帕尔迪研究的进步，而且也与存在主义学者和宗教哲学家相关。事实上，这个项目本质上是跨学科的和比较性的。这种方法的及时新颖性符合文学和哲学研究不再是独立领域的理论框架。这些作者既是作家又是哲学家。因此，跨学科性是理解他们的文学价值和思想力量的唯一途径。尼采和乌纳穆诺在他们的作品中阅读并引用了莱奥帕尔迪，但陀思妥耶夫斯基是否阅读了莱奥帕尔迪仍然不确定。第一种情况，我会充分利用直接影响力；在第二个中，我将使用衍射读取的方法（Gragnolati，2013），该方法已经应用于 Leopardi（Piperno，2018；D'Intino，2019）。本着这一精神，我将首先仔细阅读每位作者最相关的段落；然后我将继续对这些段落和整个文本进行比较阅读，将莱奥帕尔迪置于这群作者的中心，并按时间顺序分析文本，最终解释思想和术语的“衍射”从莱奥帕尔迪开始。关于可预见的结论，我希望通过仔细的文本阅读和准确的比较来证明这样一个假设：现在所谓的“存在主义”的根源可以在莱奥帕尔迪和其他三位作者身上找到，关于理性与生活之间的斗争（到目前为止这只是一个建议），以及宗教问题（这是一个完全新颖的问题）。