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).

我研究的目的是双重的：首先，考察19世纪最重要的意大利诗人贾科莫·利奥帕迪(Giacomo Leopardi，1798-1837年)的哲学和文学背景，以期预测所谓的“存在主义”；其次，证明利奥帕迪对存在的开创性思考与其他欧洲作家的哲学和文化心态显示出耐人寻味的相似之处，甚至是直接的联系：特别是费奥多·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(Miguel de Unamuno，1864-1936)。所有这些作者都对“存在”的概念提出了质疑，为存在主义铺平了道路。这个项目顺应了当前在利奥帕迪和欧洲背景之间建立对话的趋势，以及牛津大学利奥帕迪研究中心目前对他的工作的兴趣。许多学者认为利奥帕迪是存在主义的“先驱”(Luporini，1938,1980；Ruffilli，1982 et alii)，而这种认同的主要原因在于他的Dialogo di Plotino e di Porfirio(Galimberti，1977)。在本文中，利奥帕迪确立了理性与生活的对立，并首次将非理性主义引入现代性。然而，这条调查路线还远远没有完全发展起来。该项目将调查两个最具存在主义特征的问题：理性与生活之间的斗争和宗教问题。至于前者，利奥帕迪是第一个提出将生活建立在非理性决定基础上的可能性的人。在此基础上，其他作家发展了非理性主义，这将是存在主义的一个本质特征。然后，我将探索上帝和宗教的存在，作为对存在问题的任何回应的基础。对这些作家来说，上帝的存在或不存在是至关重要的概念。事实上，存在主义显然分为两种截然相反的观点：一种是无神论的，一种是宗教的(萨特，1946)。无神论和对宗教的紧张都出现在利奥帕迪的作品中(Caracciolo，1994)，因此他可以被认为是未来两条存在主义路线的起源。我相信，这项工作不仅代表着利奥帕迪研究向前迈进了一步，而且也将与存在主义学者和宗教哲学家有关。事实上，这个项目本质上是跨学科的和可比较的。这种方法的及时新颖性符合一个理论框架，在这个框架中，文学和哲学研究不再是独立的领域。这些作家既是作家，也是哲学家。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利奥帕迪，而陀思妥耶夫斯基是否读过利奥帕迪仍不确定。在第一种情况下，我将最大限度地利用直接影响；在第二种情况下，我将使用衍射阅读方法(Gragnolati，2013)，这种方法已经应用于Leopardi(Piperno，2018；D‘Intino，2019)。本着这种精神，我将从仔细阅读每个作者最相关的段落开始；然后我将继续对这些段落和整个文本进行比较阅读，将利奥帕迪保持在这一作者星座的中心，并按时间顺序分析文本，以最终解释从利奥帕迪开始的思想和术语的“绕射”。关于可预见的结论，我期望通过仔细的文本阅读和准确的比较来证明这一假设，即现在所谓的‘存在主义’的根源是在利奥帕迪和其他三位作者中找到的，关于理性和生活之间的斗争(到目前为止这只是一个建议)，以及宗教问题(这是一个完全新奇的问题)。