Le Germanie Segrete e il loro mito

Abstract

This article deals with the debate on “Secret Germany” between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. I define "Secret Germany" first of all as a literary topos. It is in fact at the origin an eminently literary phenomenon, that develops within a literary culture, the German one and that within this same culture is mobilized as a critical tool. This binary formula was soon however invested with meanings that went beyond the purely fictional and even aesthetic dimension, and aspired to a broader validity, both in the historical, social and political fields, as well as in the German culture and Weltanschauung. In this article I will try to define the conceptual boundaries of what I have called the "negative theology" of Secret Germany, using the methodological guide of Jesi and retracing some of the stages of its development: from Paul de Lagarde, to Ernst Kantorowicz, to Gaston Choisy.