La festa è finita?

(Is the Holiday Over?)

Abstract

Holidays are interruptions of ordinary time and life for the purpose of celebrating the sense, or a sense, of life itself. Holidays, which in their original sense are religious, consist of two forms, namely the sacred and the holy. Only in the form of the holy do holidays fulfill their overall purpose, which is that of giving meaning to the totality of human experience. The secularization of holidays mark their end; holidays, however, leave a trace both in the attempts at returning to the sacred and in the anguish and boredom that such a secularization entails.