Il Cristo ‘persuaso’ di Carlo Michelstaedter

Abstract

The ‘Persuaded’ Christ of Carlo Michelstaedter

In the preface to his major work, La persuasione e la rettorica, Carlo Michelstaedter puts Christ’s name alongside those of the ‘persuaded’, i.e. of those who, in the past, have been able to realize the ideal of an authentic life, not subjected to the yoke of the ‘rhetoric’. But it would be a mistake if, starting from this textual evidence, one would assume Michelstaedter to adhere to the Christian religion. In fact, a careful textual analysis of the Persuasione reveals that he does not think of the ‘Christ of faith’, but of a ‘historical Jesus’ who takes on the contours of a model of moral conduct, without any implication of Christological type.