Grace and free will. The adventure of consciousness in Elsa Morante, poet

Abstract

This article analyzes Elsa Morante's Il mondo salvato dai ragazzini (1968) as a poetics of salvation understood not in a confessional sense, but rather in anthropo­logical and political terms. Starting from the opposition between the Felici Pochi (the happy few) and the Infelici Molti (the unhappy many), it examines Morante's critique of the unreality produced by power structures and the internalization of fear. The figure of Oedipus, reread in a modern key, and the Cervantes-inspired motif of enchantment allows us to conceive salvation as an act of unmasking. Within this framework, childhood, rather than a naive idealization, emerges as the symbol of a non-instrumental relationship with the world, grounded in play, gratuity, and atten­tion. The evangelical imperative to "become like children" corresponds to an ethical demand addressed to adults. Poetry, finally, constructs a mode of integration that frees both the individual subject and the community from the "monsters" of history.