‘Istruire il popolo, non divertirlo’

The representation of the people in Roberto Sacchetti's Entusiasmi

Abstract

Following the events that led to the Milanese revolutions of 1848, Roberto Sacchetti's historical-social novel Entusiasmi depicts the relationship between its  nineteenth-century protagonist, Guido Torre, and the people, whose enthusiasms are the true driving force behind the action and the history of the Italian Risorgimento. At the same time, the novel shows the contradictions inherent in the unification process. Rather than reaffirming national unity, the novel exposes its ideological fractures, dismantling heroic rhetoric and revealing a context marked by vanity, hypocrisy, and moral inconsistency. Indeed, the protagonist embodies a Lukácsian anti-hero whose failed synthesis between private affect and public commitment results in disillusionment and exclusion from collective agency. The narrative oscillates between individual and collective dimensions, progressively dissolving personal subjectivity into a polyphonic crowd. Yet, while this collective appears democratic, it simultaneously produces mechanisms of exclusion and sacrifice, particularly through Guido’s marginalization and the sacrificial heroism of Celestino. Ultimately, Entusiasmi deconstructs nationalist mythology by replacing heroic teleology with a fragmented vision of mass ideology, in which history emerges as both a collective construction and an unresolved catastrophe.