Grief and Mourning in Middle-class Italy (1870-1915)

When in Giuseppe Tomaso di Lampedusa’s novel “Il Gattopardo”, Prince Don Fabrizio, talks of a “cemetery taste”, he alludes to a typical characteristic of the late- nineteenth century: The dominant presence of death and mourning in the public and private sphere in the late bourgeois age. This cannot be sufficiently explained in terms of higher mortality rates or shorter life spans.

By analyzing the contemporary emotions and practices of grief and mourning, the research project tries to illuminate the reasons for this fascination with the morbid. In this regard, emotions are understood as phenomena that are significantly affected by the context in which they are experienced and expressed. Hence, my work will focus on the role of social institutions like family, religion, law, but also state and science for the practices of grief and mourning, as well as on the relevance of the conception of a “good death” and the influence of writing as a characteristic trait of bourgeois culture. The impact of these considerations on experiencing grief will be analyzed through sources from relevant social and scientific debates, advisory literature and memorials. Furthermore, the study will consider personal reactions to the loss of a beloved person through ego documents, mainly diaries and letters. 

In my project I want to argue that the bourgeois emotions associated with the loss of a beloved person were marked by an increasing tendency toward rationalization. Additionally, the project aims to point out that emotions played an important role in identifying the middle classes as liberal Italy’s new social elite.