Habermas e l’immaginario dell’Europa unita: note su Heine

The essay focuses on Habermas’s reflections on Heine’s poetry, with the purpose to deal with the imaginary of a united Europe and the interpretation of his poetry according to the wider scenario of the process of modernization. To the fore is the construction of a Europe founded on parties and deprived of nations, thus contributing to the concept of European Union. In this sense, Heine’s “poetry/journalism” provides us some relevant insights regarding our postmodern condition: the cult of universalism and mobility, the research of the ‘God of one’s own’ and the decay of the selfdivinization attitude marking our liquid society. This is why this essay also focuses on the importance of literary communication in probing our complexity, increasingly influenced by communicative and technological innovation. These are some significant marks of Heine’s imaginary of a united Europe, which Habermas tried to highlight in reference to the tough path we have to tread in order to build a real, cohesive and inclusive Europe.