Economia politica dello spettacolo nella Lettre à d’Alembert

In his answer to d’Alembert’s article on Geneva published in the Encyclopedie, Rousseau discusses the traditional platonic problem of mimesis and moral justification of dramatic performances in order to reject the project of establishing a theatre in the small Swiss republic. In this paper, the author shows how strictly this problem was connected to a political one according to Rousseau’s way of thinking: in a democratic nation, citizens’ good morals must be preserved from the corruptive power of theatre in so far as it implies the introduction of idleness, bad emulation, and a liking for ostentation. Finally, the author stresses the fundamental importance Rousseau attaches, on the contrary, to civic feasts for maintenance of public good morals.