CONTRIBUTI / 4 / Valeria Dattilo /
This paper aims to trace the idea of catastrophe taking its cue from La fine del mondo. Contributo alle analisi delle apocalissi culturali by Ernesto de Martino. According to de Martino, the catastrophe of life is held in check by cultural apocalypses. The main purpose will be to trace the idea of end, as it appears in de Martino, an end that the author will define as no éschaton. The éschaton is not expected but it is in every single moment, becoming (the present) a true apocalypse. Namely, the present will be regarded as the place of the catastrophe, a catastrophe which, as Walter Benjamin emphasizes, does not lie, but always leads back again from “questa volta storico” to “una volta metastorica”, using some De Martino’s expressions. With one difference: I believe what it happened did not happen once and for all. I.e., the past is full of current events, what Benjamin with a German expression will call Jetzt-Zeit.
