society, the result is what Michelstaedter describes as "correlativity", that is, a system of contrasting wills that leads individuals to see everything contained in the real (including other subjects) in relation to their own needs, and thus as objects to be annexed for their "usefulness". Poetry Michelstaedter ventured into poetry as well as art. The topics can range to different things, but all have to do with either rhetoric or persuasion. Heavily influenced by Giacomo Leopardi, he felt a lack in his poetry seeing the similarity. However, the work should be regarded equally as important; in the poem "I Figli del Mare", Michelstaedter profoundly writes about persuasion and rhetoric in a poetic way. The poem in question can be understood as it follows that the struggle in the fury of the sea is never-ending, it never-achieves its goal, and thus necessarily and unavoidably implies a degree of error. But what differentiates this erring from the mistakes of the land is that it is, so to speak, an erring in the right direction. Michelstaedter outlines the "way to persuasion", as "research with negative data" (46), and does so in ways which are coherent with Itti's and Senia's call. This implied will is channeled inside a hyperbolic (rhetorically and mathematically) (41) path of emancipation from and resistance to rhetoric that only ad infinitum would come to join the asymptotic line ("retta", both "line" and "righteous", "correct") of Justice, absolute persuasion and self-possession. In this context, the way to persuasion is an infinite path through and in error, and moving in the right direction implies awareness of one's own inadequacy and a consistent self-reflexive negation of any rhetorically affirmed value. "By making his life more and more rich in negations, creating the world for himself" (La Persuasione 45) and, on the other, "since he has the honesty to always feel insufficient in front of the infinite potestas, he becomes more and more sufficient to things, more and more deeply enough to the eternal deficiency of things. In him, almost in an individual nucleus, more and more large determinations are organized. [...] Therefore in his presence, in his acts, in his words he reveals himself, he "enuclea," a life that transcends the myopia of men becomes near, concrete [...]. Therefore, every word of his is luminous because, with depth of connections between each other, he creates the presence of what is far away "(48).