Interview with Edoardo Prati: ‘I will never be where they expect me to be
Photos by Simone Angarano
Eros, the life force. And Logos, the power of the word that, as Socrates used to say, marks truth.
The two most powerful weapons at man’s disposal are arrows in the quiver of Edoardo Prati, a small (anagraphically) great (in awareness) William Tell who instead of the apple splits mediocrity in two.
A marvellous aggregation of cells and synapses that would prove Jung right -when he explained that there is a collective unconscious in which Pasolini, Montale, and Daverio are sedimented- Edoardo, with his habit of holding his glasses like a bulwark of foresight and his map of the Roman Empire hanging in his room, is the revenge of human ardour over AI.
Here, the acronym stands for Adorable Intellect that has mapped Lucretius, Plato, Cornelius Nepotus, Seneca, taking us back to the origins to make us realise that the substantial revolution, the saving one, we have already made.
That a 20-year-old should remind us of this is great.
“Inconsistency becomes a way of life due to the absence of the historical basis.
Going back to the classics is the most revolutionary act we can perform.
Bizarre was fine in ’68, today we just have to recompose the secular pieces we possess. There is no need to be original, to create new tesserae, we already have everything’.
The inconsistency we all complain about -but which we feed every day- where do you think it comes from?
We are not wandering monads, we are social beings. We have a history that the power system likes to make us forget, because a person without basis and structure has a lot of needs. And is more vulnerable. And buys to fill the void….
And where did you get this fullness, of awareness, of culture, of passion, from?
I felt the passion from the first poems in middle school.
I felt there that I was intimate with words.
If I have to be honest, I really perceived the erotic power of words, that is, the life force, the strongest potential for movement that exists…at the same time, it is also true that each of us internalises the expectations placed on him. I was always told I was clever, I had to become clever (laughs)
Young people follow you so very much. Then if the right nourishment is given, the hunger comes…
Of course, if messages of mistrust are conveyed, if demotivating messages are transmitted, if young people are loaded with negative expectations, what result can be achieved? This aspect, on one hand, and the over-protective attitude on the other, lead to the drawback of generating a feeling of defeat in advance. It leads them to be lame, as Plato said.
What did Plato say?
Plato talks about the myth of the androgyne in the Symposium. He relates that humans were a ball with legs and arms, until Zeus decided to split them in half because of their pride, reducing them to perpetually seeking their own completion. But he warned them: if you do wrong again, you will find yourself limping. Now, here we go…
What is the antidote to lameness?
To realise that we are eternal, that the matter of which we are composed is prior to us and subsequent. And that only the satiety that comes from knowledge puts us in a position where we do not have the needs they seek to burden us with.
No ‘stay hungry’, then?
That kind of hunger is very capitalist. You become buyers, then numbers.
You have to choose your hunger well.
Does the spirit of the classics make you free? Do you feel free?
From that kind of influence, yes. But I am a slave to other things. My mind sabotages me from time to time, implanting the fear of not being up to what I say. This success, which came all of a sudden, is a light and shade.
So school should be the place where we learn to be free…
Here, too, Plato points this out. If you want to change society, that is where you have to start. One of the things that bothers me most is the condition of teachers, who should not be harassed by bureaucratic burdens. They should be free to teach and be paid fairly.
The school is the most important social and educational institution we have.
You manage to fill a lot of gaps from a social profile! What do you think?
Social media are a powerful weapon of change, they enter the everyday and have the power to bring us out of the discrimination and limitations that have often characterised our history. For me, it’s great to see that by digging up the old, I can bring the new to light.
Your favourite philosophical triad…
Plato, Seneca and Nietsche. What struck me about him was the responsibility he bore to the point of saying ‘forgive me that it is evening’.
What is beauty?
The detail of Mars’s neck, described by Lucretius in the Hymn to Venus: he is lying on her legs and, bending his head to look at her, he notes the smoothness of her skin.
What about love? What is love?
The engine of everything, as Dante says, what ‘moves the sun and the other stars’. It has the power to move things. It only bores if it is not told well and that is why I have a plan to tour Italy in a loving journey of literature and music.
So we will see you on tour?
Yes, I am working on a show that will be staged from October in Italian cities and that will put the theme of sentiment in a broader context, where everyone can find their representation. We are not alone, there is a whole panorama to lean on.
If you had to say one sentence that characterises you?
I will never be where they expect me to be.
