Talk:Ugo Foscolo

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Three Italian Thinkers

I can not to understand the sense of chapter “three thinkers italians” The Gramsci opinion about Foscolo idea of Machiavelli is a negligible factor for an article on the life and works of Foscolo. Macchiavelli is not central in the Foscolo’s poetic. And the Gramsci opinion is a marginal off topic element, in the same ways we cannot to put in this article the opinions of others numerous XX century authors on the single elements of Foscolo’s works.

I propose the cancellation of this chapter

--Andriolo (talk) 10:07, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am proceeding with cancellation of the chapter. Some parts could to work better in the "prince of Machiavelli" article or in Gramsci article than in "Foscolo" article:

Foscolo is criticized by Antonio Gramsci as exemplfying the misunderstanding of Machiavelli, writing that the "moralistic interpretation offered by Foscolo is certainly mistaken".^[1] In other words, in his famous poem Dei Sepolcri (On Tombs), Foscolo saw Machiavelli as revealing the tyranny of the rulers even while he strengthened their power. Foscolo writes of Machiavelli: "(Machiavelli) plucks away the laurel leaves and reveals to the peoples the tears and blood running down it". However, Gramsci condemns this simple, moralistic reduction of Machiavelli to being just an exposer of political excess and abuse, without recognizing that Machiavelli is also indicating to his readership that certain means are necessary, even if they are the means of tyrants, to arrive at certain desired ends such as a popular national state built upon civic democracy, and being a revolutionary transformation of feudal theocracy.

In his seminal Prison Notebooks written under Fascist imprisonment, Antonio Gramsci defends Niccolò Machiavelli and his art of political science (a form of realpolitik commonly termed "Machiavellianism"). Seen widely as immoral rather than amoral, Machiavelli's political praxis is the area of activity that is beyond considerations and limits of conventional religion and morality. Thus, the art of politics and its practice (praxis) in the Prince for Gramsci is the necessary instruction for the non-aristocratic, indeed, democratic, progressive segments of Renaissance Florence, Tuscany, and Romagna for the effective seizure of power to create a resurgent Italian state akin to the former glory of Republican Rome. In this sense, Machivelli anticipated il Risorgimento three-hundred and thirty-nine years in advance, as the Prince was published in 1532, five years after Machiavelli's death, and Italian unification was completed in 1871.

The second section is completely off topic.

--Andriolo (talk) 13:08, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Antonio Gramsci, Selection from the Prison Notebooks, pg. 134.

[1] Antonio Gramsci, Selection from the Prison Notebooks, pg. 134.

[1]