L’eco della Rivoluzione francese in Sicilia e il controcanto dei proverbi

Abstract

This article examines the use of proverbs in anti-revolutionary poetry produced in Sicily in the last decade of the 18th century. These are poems of political propaganda and express a deep aversion, sometimes tinged with apocalyptic tones, towards the political and institutional changes proposed by French Revolution. The proverb, with its sententiousness, unquestionably affirms the truth of the statements made and the arguments advanced. In particular, it takes on a conservative political and cultural function, in opposition to the revolutionary ideologies and progressive utopianism brought to Italy by the pro-French Jacobins. Above all, its use can be reported within the historical-political category of the Counter-revolutionary Uprising, understood as a reaction to the imposition of a social and institutional structure perceived as alien, or even hostile, to traditional ones.