Mussolini, ou de la tentation prophétique

Abstract

The historiography of Italian Fascism has extensively brought to light the sacralization of political speech and of the figure of the “Duce” during the ventennio of Fascism. It has shown how Mussolini managed to take advantage of that sacralization in order to give a prophetic dimension to his speeches and to his own person. Moving from this premise and going through a precise and global analysis of the Opera Omnia –conducted with new tools of textometry and statistics– this article studies the role and legitimacy assigned by Mussolini to prophecy in political speech. This analysis first reveals a constant distrust of false prophets reinforced by the repudiation of prophecy as a sign of political powerlessness. It also reveals a conception of prophecy pertaining more to poetical inspiration than to some revelation granted by a God-sent messenger. It finally reveals a profound ambiguity, particularly visible from the Great War onwards, between the obvious instrumentalization of rhetorical and performative resources of prophecy and the explicit refusal to present himself as a prophet.

Keywords

• Benito Mussolini
• Italian Fascism
• political rhetorics
• prophecy
• prophet-poet
• prophets