Mussolini, il genio italiano e la letteratura
Résumé
The aim of this text is to analyze how the concept of a national "genius" evolves in Mussolini's texts from the beginning of the 20th century until the First World War. In Mussolini's propaganda during the fascist regime, the definition of a distinctive Italian nature has a clear political meaning that finally converges on the racist discourse in the Thirties. But in the first decade of the 20th century the young intellectual Mussolini already used this word , merely giving it a cultural and literary sense, in his studies on Italian and German literature. The political meaning is progressively added to the first literary definition - as the links between literature and nationalism become more obvious in Mussolini's thought - and tends to definitely prevail during the war.