No one is an island, wrote the Elizabethan metaphysical poet John Donne, one of the greatest preachers of his time and a master of conceptualized metaphor. Nuccio Ordine, professor of Italian literature, draws on one of Donne’s ideas in Devotions to Close Situations (1624) to insist on the classics’ relationship to life. Classics help us live, Ordine suggested, as an expression of her first ideal library in 2016, she would publish a second book two years later, which now sees the light translated into Spanish by Acantilado’s hand. The image of Donne, which the poet ends by begging you not to ask anyone because the bells are ringing for you, is effective in preparing the ground for him to tell about what is happening in Europe, and he wakes up. The author of Men are not islands writes a memoir of values that seem to have been forgotten today by a selfish and violent society, promoting conflict between the most disadvantaged local classes and immigrants, as well as promoting inequality in general.
Mankind is not an island, the life of each is a part of us. If the bells are ringing, don’t ask for whom they are ringing, they are ringing for you. From Ordine’s and Sappho’s poems to Eliot’s Four Quartets; From Aristotle to La Boétie, from Erasmus of Rotterdam to Pascal, from Dante Alighieri to Paul Celan, from Camões to Conrad, from Emily Dickinson to Virginia Woolf. All texts agree that we must live for others if we want to give meaning to our lives. We must re-meditate with the classical writers to build a more supportive humanity. There is a powerful message in Ordine’s new book, subtly promoted and manipulated by “politicians armed with relentless cynicism”, at a time when particularist egoism, intolerance, racism, and fear of the foreign and different are resurging. They all use the same slogan with different sauces: “America First”, “La France d’abord”, “Prima gli italiani” or “Brasil acima de tudo” to name a few, the founders of populist parties. on the anger and agony over electoral gains.
The reflection of the author of the book Men are not islands also extends to the world of the school. Ordine proposes and builds on the ideas already outlined in her previous title, Classics for Life, and denounces commercial drift that jeopardizes the future of scientific research. For “efficiency” reasons, he writes, education is no longer measured by the knowledge that must be passed on to students, but by the skills they must acquire to enter the world of work. In other words: the goal is no longer to train educated citizens who can critically understand themselves and the world around them, but to train professionals who can adapt to the demands of globalized production. Nuccio Ordine spoke of the absence of educational protection in an enlightening manifesto published in 2013 under the title The Useless Benefit. Contrary to the currently established discourse, he often repeats himself wherever he is invited to lecture that “it is not only useful that produces benefits”. While reading these beautiful pages that encourage a close and lucrative relationship with the classics, it’s easy to forget the betrayal of the ideals of Humanism and the sad drift and negative effects of Western culture. tried to overlook the cultured and tasteful person. Therefore, life has ceased to be part of the larger dimension Donne spoke of.