Sarà una risata che vi seppellirà

Starting from the traditional contrast between the tragedy that marks the end of a culture in a serious way and the comedy that represents its farce, the essay investigates the possibilities - in modern and contemporary times - of redefining such relationships. To this end are placed in parallel aesthetics (especially Aristotle and Hegel) and the philosophy of history (starting from Augustine) since the tragedy and the comedy have always, each in their own way, marked the end of an era. Through Schiller's theoretical writings that deal with the relationship between the tragic and the comic, we then come to the way in which Samuel Beckett has staged either tragedy and comedy and, at times, both simultaneously dismantling the prerogatives of rationalistic logic in favor of a mémoire du corps, Proust is talking about, which, through irony and humor, can reopen the horizons of a utopian becoming worthy of the human race.