Carnevale e agone tragico: sulla "Historische Psychologie des Karnevals" di Florens Christian Rang

Abstract

After editing the 1983 first Italian edition for Arsenale Editore, later reprinted by Bollati Boringhieri in 2008, the author of this essay returns to the themes of Florens Christian Rang’s Historische Psychologie des Karnevals (1909-1927/1928). Starting from a brief but comprehensive reconstruction of the biographical and intellectual profile of this eccentric thinker and theologian, the article first further investigates his thesis on the Babylonian origin of the Carnival, and secondly, the relationship between Carnival and tragic agon. The “breach of astrology, and therefore the flight from destiny, as determined by the course of the stars” is the link that binds these two ritual spheres and that leads to a philosophical dialogue, as a contest of words, a race of thought for salvation.