Abstract
This article examines Guido Ceronetti’s Tragico tascabile (2015), exploring his paradoxical fusion of hope and the tragic, informed by Terry Eagleton’s Hope without optimism. Eagleton critiques optimism as a shallow, liberal-individualist construct, advocating instead for a hope rooted in uncertainty and collective resistance. Similarly, Ceronetti intertwines a tragic worldview – reflecting human finitude and existential uncertainty – with a resilient hope, drawing examples from contemporary life. Eagleton’s framework helps decipher Ceronetti’s rejection of superficial optimism in favor of a deeper, transformative hope. Ceronetti contrasts the postmodern “pocket-sized” tragic – epitomized by sensationalist crime news – with an authentic, unflinching engagement with suffering. His version of hope emerges not as escapism but as intellectual and spiritual defiance, confronting chaos without diminishing its gravity. Through this lens, the article positions Ceronetti as a profound late-20th-century thinker whose work resonates with Eagleton’s call for a hope grounded in struggle rather than naïve optimism, offering a nuanced response to modernity’s contradictions.