I am coming to believe the rumour that Gramsci
returned to the Church on his deathbed. Even if he was cremated, and his
ashes interred in the Cimitero degli Inglesi. Where Keats is buried.
Gramsci was a Romantic hero born out of his time, really, wasn't he?
Hence, I am coming to believe the rumour that he returned to the Church
on his deathbed.
It is something that I have heard by word of mouth from time to time.
He was only 46, and I really do think that if the trajectory of his
thought had continued, then that would have been where it ended up: the
insistence on the unity of theory and practice, the rejection of
economic determinism and of metaphysical materialism, the celebration of
the "national-popular", the call for an organic working-class culture
and self-organisation including worker-intellectuals.
I
sometimes think that when I die, then I should like to be cut in half,
after the manner of Saint Catherine of Siena. Her top half is in
Siena, her bottom half is in Rome. But which half of me should go to
the Cimitero degli Inglesi with Gramsci and Keats, which half to Père
Lachaise with Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison, and why?
It always reveals something of the person when they imagine such a thing as the 'worker-intellectuals'.
ReplyDeleteUsually that they're neither workers, nor part of that class of men, nor very much one of the supposed intellectuals.....
As to which part of you should be interred where, I wouldn't even like to speculate...
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, it certainly always reveals something of the person when they come out with that.
ReplyDeleteClearly, you cannot remember the last of them, clinging on as best they could during and immediately after the destruction of the economic basis of their existence by That Woman, who was undeniably neither a worker nor an intellectual.
Hello, Anthony. Good to hear from you.
ReplyDeletePerhaps David you ought to be buried in St Helena?
ReplyDeleteThen you may be remembered as one of the saints in every sense of the word
Alas, I should have to be cremated for that. People are, and their ashes sent back to be interred in the graves of their parents. But one of my parents is, and the other will be, buried in Lanchester.
ReplyDelete