La disperata speranza.Una lettura della Vita di Alfieri

The starting point of the paper is the special declination that Giacomo Debenedetti, in Vocazione di Vittorio Alfieri, gave to the great author from Asti and above all to his autobiographic work. Hope, seen as an attitude and as purpose, can turn into the best method to analyze literature and some authors in particular. In addition, Debenedetti’s work can be compared to Plutarch’s Parallel Lives and Petrarca's Secretum, and relates to a historiographic and sociological perspective that finds in the theme of hope – seen also in a religious perspective – its point of irradiation. Moving between reality and tension to hagiography, between self-love and promotion of personal intelligence, it will be outlined a fundamental aspect of Alfieri’s work, based on the so-called «forte sentire» and debtor to the concept of hope for the acquisition of a method as well a way of knowledge.