O miserable minds of men, spirits or blind!
How dark existence and great dangers
between what we spend this short life!
(De rerum natura, II, vv. 14-16)
Lucretius puts great emphasis on the importance of Epicurus, reserving several accolades during decanting of the poem and as the discoverer of the true benefactor of mankind: Lucretius himself acknowledges In fact, the greek philosopher authorship of the doctrine set forth in the poem.
When human life lay before her eyes shamefully
on earth crushed under the heavy religion
that protruded from the head regions of the sky
looming on men with horrible looks,
first a greek man dared to raise against
mortal eyes and against the first object, and not
The curb the fame of the
nor lightning nor the sky with the threatening murmur, but this is more stimulating
the burning power of the spirit, wanting to
first to break the tight nature of the doors ironmongery .
So prevailed lively soul force, and advanced long
beyond the walls inflamed universe
and traveled with the reason and the mind the vast universe, which
, victorious, shows us what can be born,
what can not, then why has everything
a law adopted and a limit fixed deeply.
So religion put under your feet in turn
is trampled, victory equals us to heaven.
(De rerum natura, I, vv. 62-79)
Now the truth is finally revealed to the human eye, superstition and religion has ceased to deceive. Unfortunately, the discovery of the true nature of things brings with it great bitterness: it comes to the sad conclusion as true and palpable that the world was not created for man, who to live within it must adapt by using his reason, while other creatures are at their wildest comfortable for natural constitution.
And even do not know what the first elements of things,
dare say this, however, according to the same phenomena
proof of heaven and under many other things:
that the nature of the world was not at all willing
by divine will for us, so it has a big flaw.
First place, as it covers the wide expanse of the sky,
a large part is occupied by mountains and forests
domain of wild animals, possess the cliffs and deserted
marshes and the sea that large banks of land separating the .
addition, almost two thirds
the scorching heat and freezing them out of the regular fall to mortals.
What remains of farmland, nature with its strength
the cover of brambles, however, if you do not resist the force of man,
accustomed to the needs of life to wail on the robust
hoe and plow the land, driving them at the bottom of the plow.
If, with the ploughshare turning the fruitful glebe and wonder
the soil of the land, not stimulate them to be born,
plants could not arise spontaneously in pure air;
and yet, at times, procured with great difficulty, when
already leafed through the fields and all thrive,
or burns with excessive sun heats the ethereal
or destroy the sudden rains and cold brine,
and devastated by violent the blowing of the wind turbines.
And then the hideous race of wild beasts,
enemy of mankind, because the nature on land and sea
and increases the power? Why do the seasons bring
diseases? Because the sudden death wanders here and there?
And also, the child, as a sailor on shore threw
by raging waves, lies naked on the floor, unable to speak,
in need of any help to live, just the nature him out
with efforts outside of the womb to the shores of light,
and fills the place of a mournful cry, as it should
for a life that must go through many evils. But growing
various domestic animals, the cattle and wild beasts, or
need rattles, no need for
the babbling voice of the loving and affectionate nurse,
or they require different capacities according to the seasons;
Finally, do not need weapons or high walls,
to protect their assets, since for all
widely throughout the earth itself produce and nature artist.
(De rerum natura, V, vv. 195-234)
This interpretation of the nature and the fact that the poem ends with a tragic event such as the plague of Athens leave no doubt pessimism about Lucretius.
These two Latin authors of the first century BC, are the founders of two strands in the opposite direction crossing the literature of all time: the concept of a nature indifferent to human needs has enormous importance in the work of Giacomo Leopardi (whose will later), that of nature as a refuge of the poet who rejects the reality is at the base of the poetics of Giovanni Pascoli.
An important fact which puts it rightly in the footsteps of the Virgilian tradition is the fact that his first collection of poems, Myricae, takes its name from a term that you encounter in one of the first verses of the Fourth Bucolica .
Pascoli lives a life troubled by many family losses, the most serious of which is the death of his father 10 August 1867, when the poet was only twelve years. This childhood trauma stops the growth of pastures in many aspects of social life, making it impossible to achieve milestones such as marriage and removal from her sister Mary, known affectionately Mariù, with whom spend their whole life. This closure of the poet in his family is expressed in more intimate poetry through the concept of the "nest." His poetry also addresses the theme of the young child, on the theory that each person also retains his old adult and child sensitivity. For this reason, the poet is also visionary: through a childhood vision of reality, he is able to grasp issues invisible to those who will listen to the young child. Pastures look candidly describes the nature and specific terms and even onomatopoeia, while managing to keep a record high. Through language, which creates its own symbolism, as is evident in the poem The night jasmine, in which descriptions of flowers, fruits and other natural elements that allude to the sexual act, a reality which the poet looks at a certain distance , index of the inner turmoil experienced by Pascoli.
The Night Jasmine (from Canti di Castelvecchio)
E the flowers were opened at night,
hour you think of 'my dear.
have surfaced in the midst of the viburnum
crepuscular butterflies.
one piece is the silent cry:
alone a house whispers.
Under the wings sleeping nests,
as the eyes under the eyelids. Have you opened
glasses
exhales the smell of strawberries.
shines a light into the room beyond.
born the grass over the graves.
bee whispers late
cells are already taken.
Chioccetta The Hague for the blue
goes with his peep of stars.
All night s'esala
the smell that goes with the wind.
Switch the light on the stairs;
shines on the first floor is off. . .
is dawn close the petals
a little crumpled,
are hatching inside the ballot box springs and secret
something new happiness.
Looking at a pessimistic vein, we arrive in Italian literature at Giacomo Leopardi in Recanati was born in 1798, lived as a child undergoing rigorous education on the part of the family, to the point of defining his father's house hostel, and living a love-hate relationship with the study. Leopardi has always maintained a pessimistic conception of reality, at first mitigated by the idea of \u200b\u200ba benign nature that, through the illusions, the man concealed the 'horrible truth. " Leopardi also belongs to the first concept of historical pessimism: the men, throughout history, have wandered from the path that the benign nature drew them to limit their suffering: this is why the ancients were happier and stronger physically, simply because were more deluded. Later, the poet arrives at the stage of the famous cosmic pessimism: the nature no longer operates for the benefit of its creatures, according to a teleological conception, but is merely an institution ruled by mechanical laws to which imports only the survival of the world, according to a mechanistic and materialistic. We find these ideas expressed in some verses of the Great Operettas romances, and especially in moral, one of which, The Dialogue of Nature and an Icelander, directly addresses the problem. Icelander to pressing questions, Nature responds by referring to the mechanistic theories mentioned above.
Nature. Perhaps you imagined that the world was made because of you? We now know that the invoices, orders and operations of mine, trattone very few, and I always had the intention to anything but happiness men or unhappiness. When I offended you in any way and at half what it is, I do not n'avveggo me, if not very rarely: as, ordinarily, if I pleasure or benefit you, I do not know, and I did not, as you think you, as these things or not such actions those f or, for pleasure or benefit you. And finally, if I happen to pay off your whole species, I will not avvedrei.
(Dialogue of Nature and an Icelander)
O nature, nature, why do you
what they promise? Why do you so deceive your children
?
(Silvia, vv. 36-39)
But why give to the sun,
Why stand in life
Who then be consoled for?
If life is misery,
Why are we last?
Intact moon, such
E 'mortal state.
But you're not mortal,
And maybe you say the least of my hauls.
(Night Song of a Wandering Shepherd in Asia, vv. 53-60)
It 's interesting to compare the night song of a wandering shepherd Asia with the second Idyll of Theocritus, for while the protagonist of This Simet, imagine a participation of the moon to its magical rituals (in fact occurs the refrain in the poem "Do you think from where it started my love, Moon God"), the protagonist of that, the wandering shepherd, includes the strangeness of the moon - as a synecdoche of all nature - to human affairs.
O courteous nature,
Are these your gifts,
These are the delights
Whether you incline to mortals.
Get out of pain
E 'beloved among us.
Pene you scatter with lavish hand, and the grief
Volunteer rises: and pleasure, as much
that to show and sometimes
miracle born of pain, is much gain. Human
dear offspring to the eternal! very happy
If you breathe lice
On any grief: Blessed
If any of you heal painful death.
(The calm after the storm, vv. 42-54)
Similar to Giacomo Leopardi's thought is that of Arthur Schopenhauer: for both, life is a "pendulum between boredom and pain "and any pleasure derived by the termination of a previous pain (pleasure son of breathlessness). The philosopher
Danzig believes that every living creature, then the whole world, and objectification of the intention of the will We Live (Wille zum Leben), a self-preservation instinct, the irrational impulse (for the intention of this feature, some saw in it an antecedent of the Freudian unconscious) that Schopenhauer believes it is nothing but the thing itself , as sought by Kant as the idealists mortified. It is not unattainable and the only way to reach it is the noumenal autointuizione that it gives us our body: in fact the man is not a 'winged angel's head without a body. " Access to the thing in itself allows us to pierce the veil of Maya (a term that derives from Eastern philosophies, which Schopenhauer admired), ie the representation. And it is on dichotomy between desire and representation that is made all Schopenhauer's philosophy. While the first phenomenon in Kant enjoyed a certain importance because, as the noumenon of reach, sensory experience was the only man who could feel, now in Schopenhauer has finally managed to overcome the veil of representation in achieving it itself. However, this is a bitter surprise, as it turns out that the noumenon, that is the intention of it is a bad thing: the real substance of the world is evil! This desire is unconscious and is the only reason as a means to achieve their goals, is unique because it exists outside of the categories of space, time and causality and objective step by step: - Neo-Platonic influence - first in the archetypes (the Platonic ideas), then in every creature and object. Being outside of time, the will is eternal, and being irrational, that is, outside the category of cause, it is also absurd and blind: for each event will not be able to understand only part of the will itself, recognizing only itself, and therefore sees only the other instruments to exploit for their own survival, not other manifestations of the same will. Since this will is evil, it must be fought, that is transformed into noluntas: To accomplish this, Schopenhauer has two solutions: the ethics of compassion and asceticism, the latter of eastern origin. The first is to come to the realization that what seems to me other than me in fact it is not because we are all phenomenal objectification of the will is therefore a noble form of altruism and selflessness.
The second proposes the annulment of the will through the attainment of nirvana. Schopenhauer condemns suicide, considering that, rather than a renunciation of the will, a greater claim to it, because making such a gesture will not reject an individual but their poor living conditions.
There are some differences between the world views of the two thinkers. The philosopher Schopenhauer thought
is more complex than that of Leopardi: the latter admits suicide, believes that only the human condition is bad, not the entire world, and feels - like Augustine - evil as the absence of good. This view is more pessimistic than that of the philosopher of Gdansk, because it puts a negative intention of leaving the hope that it will be converted into something positive, while in the Leopards could not be done.
pampsichistico the vein, is part of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
In this poem nature is an organism that lives in harmony with man, unless he does not sin of blasphemy against him, as if killing dell'albatro, accomplished without a reason from the old sailor. In this act of revenge following υβρις very hard by nature: death, divine, wins the hearts of sailors of the crew, who perished in agony, the Life-in-death, also in the form of deities , wins the soul of the old sailor, who is forced to suffer until the appearance of sea snakes of many colors and repentance of the protagonist. This is a watershed moment in the story: the first creatures were gathering around the vessel monstrous and evil spirits described in the romantic style for the dark and monstrous, after, the creatures take on a positive value: guide the sailor on the right track, in real sense is, both figuratively. The protagonist learns in this way, the respect for nature, behind which is hidden from the divine, but is condemned to tell their stories forever. The ballad is thus composed of a ring.
It is a story in the narrative: it opens with the stone guest of marriage that can not escape the story of the Ancient Mariner, lured by the magical power of this man, and ends with the same stone guest which vanishes' sadder but more become wise. " The size of Coleridge
lies in describing scenes and surreal supernatural make it as close as possible to the story of an adventure really happened. For this purpose does a work of purging the lexicon, trying to reach a language 'as old as the ancient mariner, ancient and simple, full of all the wonder of books and travel. [... ] It 's the ideal language, lost in the diversification of social, historical, individual: each time found from the poem. It 's the first word of the language by which a man breaks the silence "(Geneva Bompiani).
The ice was here,
the ice was there,
Was the ice all around:
it cracked and growled,
and roared and howled, Like noises in
to swound!
(vv. 59-62)
(translation by Mario Luzi:
The ice was everywhere,
was here, was there:
was all around;
rattled, groaned and howled!
How, Sven, we hear a rumble room.)
The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That Should this ever be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs upon the slimy sea
.
(vv. 123-126)
(translation by Mario Luzi:
The deep rotting, O Christ!
that happen this thing!
crawling sticky paws
bodies to inform the water slimy. )
I pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
That Moment That I see His face, I know the man
That must hear me: my
To Him that I teach. .
(vv. 586-590)
(translation by Mario Luzi:
from land to land migrates as a shadow;
strange power is in my words;
as soon as he ch ' I I see his face,
know the man that I should heed:
to him my story kr)
In current Roman
ticismo, we also find Caspar David Friedrich. This artist, to paint a landscape, trying to bring out the feeling that it transmits to humans. In line with the poetics of the sublime, depicting situations in which it occurs unleashed the power of the elements of nature. Often, this performance stands in contrast to the smallness of human being and his existential condition: thus man has the impression of being confined to a tiny dot surrounded by an infinite universe and majestic, capable of giving rise to this sublime feelings. Representations can be stated as clearly exemplify the Wanderer above the Sea of \u200b\u200bFog, Monaco by the sea, beach and sea ice Marshy, reminiscent of Coleridge's ballad.
To fully understand this poetics, it can be compared with that of the picturesque, whose greatest exponent was John Constable, whose paintings are real romances in which nature is peaceful friend of man.
Friedrich's art is also suffering from the influences of poetry cemetery
cleverly transposed onto the canvas in Abbey in the oak case, the work also to make a valid comparison between the human dimensions and those of the natural elements, in this case the trees, thus confirming the dominant motif of Friedrich's painting: the sense of human finitude in infinity of nature.
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
Reflections on the combination of work by Paul Ricoeur Marx, Nietzsche and Freud as "masters of suspicion '
The philosopher Pau
Ricoeur interprets the Marx, Nietzsche and Freud as "masters of suspicion". This definition highlights the fact that these three thinkers have sought to portray the true essence of consciousness, and reality, destroying many of the traditional certainties of their times. From this arises the desecration of religion, explaining it as a system that was intended as a instrumentum kingdoms (the 'opium of people "Marx), as a" Platonism for the people "(Nietzsche), or as a set of collective rituals aimed to satisfaction of the atavistic desire to protect people in the dialectic son (humanity) - father (god), as interpreted by Freud. So writes Ricoeur, quote Heidegger: "The 'destruction' of the worlds is a retrograde positive task, including the destruction of religion, insofar as it is, in the words of Nietzsche, a" Platonism for the people. "
After the destruction of the illusory certainties that have suppressed the truth, it is necessary that it arises in its most clear expression of this need arises because the Nietzschean phrase: "Dead are all gods: now we want the superman alive! " (Thus Spake Zarathustra, Part I, by virtue of giving, par. 3). And to create the superman you must follow the reality without trying sovraterrene certainties thus remaining faithful to the earth. The reality must therefore be analyzed in hermeneutics, and this is accomplished by the three thinkers in question, each of which examined all of reality, not just a specific branch of knowledge, as the study of the three academic philosophers would have us believe. Ricoeur points out what he wrote: "We are still too attentive to their differences, that is, ultimately, the limits imposed on these three thinkers from the prejudices of their time, and we are particular victims of school in which they are closed down by their successors: that Marx is relegated in an economical and in the absurd theory of Marxist-reflective consciousness, Nietzsche is pulled toward a biological or even to an apology of violence, Freud is shelved in psychiatry, disguised in a ridiculously simplistic pansexualism.
All three make an analytical process in reverse, ie starting from the phenomenal manifestations of reality (which may appear disorganized in the first instance and without sense) to get to the factors that have been originated and processes through which they acquire the appearance with which they appear.
Given these dynamics, we understand how the lack of order and sense identified above was only apparent. All three philosophers analyzed his material by the method of investigation that unfolds in Freud's interpretation of dreams, then in understanding the phenomena that gave a semblance irrational real memories. This is the meaning of the complex sentence of Ricoeur: "From them, the understanding is hermeneutic: finding meaning, now does not mean to spell awareness of the meaning, but deciphering his expressions."
BIBLIOGRAPHY
R. Rossi, UC Gallici, G. Vallarino, L. Pasquariello, A. Porcelli - 'Eλληνικά, Pearson
Dario Del Corno - Greek Literature, Principality
Luca Canali - Camene, Einaudi Scuola
Luciano Perelli - History Latin literature, Pearson
Joan Garbarino, - Work, Pearson
Bruno Snell - The Arcadia: the discovery of a spiritual landscape, in Greek culture and the origins of European thought
Guido Baldi, Silvia Giusso, Mario Razetto, Giuseppe Zaccaria - Literature, Pearson
Ginevra Bompiani (eds.) - Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, translated by Mario Luzi, BUR
Abbagnano Nicola, Giovanni Fornero - Protagonists and texts of philosophy, Pearson
Revision of the History of Italian texts by Clara Calza, Xavier Hernandez, Edward Varini - Lessons of Art, Electa Bruno Mondadori
for deepening philosophical
Abbagnano Nicola, Giovanni Fornero - Protagonists and texts of philosophy, Paul Ricoeur-Pearson
The conflict of interpretations, Italian translation, Jaca Book, Milan
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - Thus Spake Zarathustra, Adelphi
Valerio Toldonato
Since its appearance on Earth, man had to constantly interact with their surroundings: lots of early hominids, which considered the result of natural phenomena the action of divine forces to appease them by unknown with rituals and sacrifices, as the exponents of the highest philosophy have all tried to understand what the role of man in the world in which - to use an expression borrowed existentialism - is to be thrown. 
