L’inefficienza della filiera artistica dell’industria culturale: l’antimanzonismo silente

This paper analyses the perverse effects that the inefficiency of the artistic chain of the cultural industry has on art consumption, which is due to the fact that the schools have been forced to accept an ‘official’ model of use that is hostile to the modus operandi of art – a relativistic, metatextual model imposed by official artistic culture. This cultural pathology is particularly clear if examined in reference to a masterpiece of Italian literature – Alessandro Manzoni’s The Betrothed – both because of the fact that the whole of official artistic culture is responsible for how it has been atrociously misunderstood, as well as for the fact that this wrong way of reading the masterpiece is required in all of the Italian schools. ‘Silent anti-Manzonism’ – a form of rejecting the novel – is the main perverse effect produced by this malfunctioning of the artistic chain. The argument put forward in this paper is supported by (a) the correct reading of the novel; (b) the significant testimony of a ‘rebellious’ intellectual of the twentieth century: Guido da Verona; (c) the results of an imposing investigative survey in 1993, in which 2600 Italian high school teachers participated.