Constructing a national identity from a created literary past: Giosuè Carducci and the development of a national literature

Abstract

Giosuè Carducci's conception of Italian literature differed from those of Francesco de Sanctis and Benedetto Croce. He argued that Italian literature, together with a concomitant cultural identity and political mission, developed along a continuous, progressive and evolutionary path. This study analyzes Carducci's creation of an Italian cultural and political identity through literary history and his construction of a plausible model for its historical development by incorporating literary,scientific and political theories. Carducci gave Italians a past of which they could be proud, proof of Italy's leading role in Europe's civilizing mission, and a strategy to accomplish it. Carducci's conception of italianitÀ, defined in terms of a historic mission of grandezza , was one of several brands of Italian nationalism. His linking of literary history to aspirations of national unity and aggrandizement implied that the mantle of the Risorgimento now belonged to the educated elite. This linkage of literature and national identity to aspirations of cultural and political hegemony explains why Carducci was so popular with the Nationalist Party whose leaders invoked his literary history to legitimize their political program and to discredit their political opponents prior to World War I and under Fascism.