The End of the World and the Drama of Presence: the Aesthetic Redemption of Crisis in Ernesto De Martino

Abstract

In his great unfinished project on the “end of the world” (La fine del mondo), Ernesto De Martino reformulates his perspective on the concept of “presence” and the role of cultural institutions. Faced with the crisis of modernity, the salvific and reintegrative function of mythical-ritual and religious practices (explored in his most famous writings, from Il mondo magico to La terra del Rimorso) is extended to cultural and symbolic activity as a whole. The conquest of a stable “presence” thus refers to the need to establish a “world” as a horizon of making sense: an establishment that passes through the aesthetic dimension as a privileged and exemplary space.