Religione e sensibilità su alcuni motivi "estetici" in Ernesto de Martino

Abstract

The article focuses the function of the «sensibility» in what is named by Ernesto De Martino the soteriological drama of «presence». In De Martino's early studies on religion, the sacred is qualified as a «technique of the presence towards herself». In this framework, the primacy accorded to technical aspects of the sacred compared to the doctrinal ones highlights the troubled «human genesis» characterizing and giving impetus to the real religious life. Therefore, religious experience represents a protective instrument that operates through the mythical-ritual symbolism. Our hypothesis is that the protective strategy of religious experience finds its main involvement center in the body. For this reason, religion is analyzed here as a technique of the sensibility and the theme of presence is understood in its particular "aesthetic" relevance.