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LEOPARDI, GIACOMO, COUNT (1798-1837)
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See also:LEOPARDI, GIACOMO, See also:COUNT (1798-1837) , See also:Italian poet, was See also:born at See also:Recanati in the See also: The See also:ode to Italy, and that on the See also:monument to Dante erected at See also:Florence, gave See also:voice to the dismay and affliction with which .Italy, aroused by the See also:French Revolution from the torpor of the 17th and 18th centuries, contemplated her forlorn and degraded See also:condition, her See also:political See also:impotence, her degeneracy in arts and arms and the frivolity or stagnation of her intellectual life. They were the outcry of a student who had found an ideal of See also:national existence in his books, and to whose disappointment everything in his own circumstances See also:lent additional poignancy. But there is nothing unmanly or morbid in the expression of these sentiments, and the odes are surprisingly exempt from the failings characteristic of See also:young poets. They are remarkably chaste in diction, See also:close and nervous in style, sparing in See also:fancy and almost destitute of simile and See also:metaphor, antique in spirit, yet pervaded by modern ideas, combining See also:Landor's dignity with a considerable infusion of the See also:passion of See also:Byron. These qualities continued to characterize Leopardi's poetical writings throughout his life. A third ode, on See also:Cardinal See also:Mai's discoveries of ancient See also:MSS., lamented in the same spirit of indignant sorrow the decadence of Italian literature. The publication of these pieces widened the See also:breach between Leopardi and his father, a well-meaning but apparently dull and apathetic See also:man, who had lived into the 19th century without imbibing any of its spirit, and who provoked his son's contempt by a superstition unpardonable in a scholar of real learning. Very probably from a mistaken See also:idea of See also:duty to his son, very probably, too, from his own entire dependence in pecuniary matters upon his wife, he for a See also:long See also:time obstinately refused Leopardi funds, recreation, See also:change of See also:scene, everything that could have contributed to combat the growing See also:pessimism which eventually became nothing less than monomaniacal. The See also:affection of his brothers and sister afforded him some See also:consolation, and he found intellectual sympathy in the eminent scholar and patriot Pietro Giordani, with whom he assiduously corresponded- at this See also:period, partly on the ways and means of escaping from " this hermitage, or rather seraglio, where the delights of See also:civil society and the advantages of solitary life are alike wanting." This forms the keynote of numerous letters of complaint and lamentation, as touching' but as effeminate in their pathos as those of the banished See also:Ovid. It must beremembered in fairness that the weakness of Leopardi's eyesight frequently deprived him for months together of the resource of study. At length (1822) his father allowed him to repair to See also:Rome, where, though cheered by the encouragement of C. C. J. See also:Bunsen and See also:Niebuhr, he found little See also:satisfaction in the trifling pedantry that passed for See also:philology and See also:archaeology, while his sceptical opinions prevented his taking orders, the indispensable condition of public employment in the Papal States. Dispirited and with exhausted means, he returned to Recanati, where he spent three miserable years, brightened only by the See also:production of several lyrical masterpieces, which appeared in 1824. The most remarkable is perhaps the Bruto Minore, the condensation of his See also:philosophy of despair. In 1825 he accepted an engagement to edit See also:Cicero and Petrarch for the publisher Stella at See also:Milan, and took up his See also:residence at See also:Bologna, where his life was for a time made almost cheerful by the friendship of the countess Malvezzi. In 1827 appeared the Operette Morali, consisting principally of dialogues and his imaginary See also:biography of Filippo Ottonieri, which have given Leopardi a fame as a See also:prose writer hardly inferior to his celebrity as a poet. Modern literature has few productions so eminently classical in form and spirit, so symmetrical in construction and faultless in style. See also:Lucian is evidently the See also:model; but the wit and See also:irony which were See also:play-things to Lucian are terribly See also:earnest with Leopardi. Leopardi's invention is equal to Lucian's and his only See also:drawback in comparison with his exemplar is that, while the latter's See also:campaign against pretence and imposture commands hearty sympathy, Leopardi's philosophical creed is a repulsive See also:hedonism in the disguise of austere stoicism. The See also:chief interlocutors in his dialogues all profess the same unmitigated pessimism, claim emancipation from every illusion that renders life tolerable to the vulgar, and assert or imply a vast moral and intellectual superiority over unenlightened mankind. When, however, we come to inquire what renders them miserable, we find it is nothing but the privation of pleasurable sensation, fame, See also:fortune or some other See also:external thing which a lofty See also:code of See also:ethics would deny to be either indefeasibly due to man or essential to his felicity. A See also:page of Sartor Resartus scatters Leopardi's sophistry to the winds, and leaves nothing of his dialogues but the con-summate See also:literary skill that would render the least fragment See also:precious. As See also:works of See also:art they are a See also:possession for ever, as contributions to moral philosophy they are worthless, and apart from their literary qualities can only See also:escape condemnation if regarded as lyrical expressions of emotion, the wail extorted from a diseased mind by a diseased See also:body. Filippo Ottonieri is a portrait of an imaginary philosopher, imitated from the biography of a real See also:sage in Lucian's Demonax. Lucian has shown us the philosopher he wished to copy, Leopardi has truly depicted the philosopher he was. Nothing can be more striking or more tragical than the picture of the man See also:superior to his See also:fellows in every quality of See also:head and See also:heart, and yet condemned to sterility and impotence because he has, as he imagines, gone a step too far on the road to truth, and illusions exist for him no more. The little See also:tract is full of remarks on life and See also:character of surprising See also:depth and See also:justice, manifesting what See also:powers of observation as well as reflection were possessed by the sickly youth who had seen so little of the See also:world. Want of means soon drove Leopardi back to Recanati, where, See also:deaf, See also:half-See also:blind, sleepless, tortured by incessant See also:pain, at See also:war with himself and every one around him except his sister, he spent the two most unhappy years of his unhappy life. In May 1831 he escaped to Florence, where he formed the acquaintance of a young Swiss philologist, M. de Sinner. To him he confided his unpublished philological writings, with a view to their See also:appearance in See also:Germany. A selection appeared under the See also:title Excerpta ex schedis criticis J. Leopardi (See also:Bonn, 1834). The remaining MSS. were See also:purchased after Sinner's death by the Italian See also:government, and, together with Leopardi's See also:correspondence with the Swiss philologist, were partially edited by See also:Aulard. In 1831 appeared a new edition of Leopardi's poems, comprising several new pieces of the highest merit. These are in general less austerely classical than his earlier compositions, and evince a greater tendency to description, and a keener See also:interest in the works and ways of See also:ordinary mankind. The Resurrection, composed on occasion of his unexpected recovery, is a model of concentrated energy of diction, and The See also:Song of the Wandering Shepherd in See also:Asia is one of the highest flights of modern lyric See also:poetry. The range of the author's ideas is still restricted, but his style and See also:melody are unsurpassable. Shortly after the publication of these pieces (See also:October 1831) Leopardi was driven from Florence to Rome by an unhappy See also:attachment. His feelings are powerfully expressed in two poems, To Himself and See also:Aspasia, which seem to breathe wounded See also:pride at least as much as wounded love. In 1832 Leopardi returned to Florence, and there formed acquaintance with a young Neapolitan, See also:Antonio Ranieri, himself an author of merit, and destined to enact towards him the See also:part performed by See also:Severn towards See also:Keats, an enviable title to renown if Ranieri had not in his old See also:age tarnished it by assuming the relation of See also:Trelawny to the dead Byron. Leopardi accompanied Ranieri and his sister to See also:Naples, and under their care enjoyed four years of See also:comparative tranquillity. He made the acquaintance of the See also:German poet Platen, his See also:sole modern See also:rival in the classical perfection of form, and composed La Ginestra, the most consummate of all his lyrical masterpieces, strongly resembling Shelley's Mont See also:Blanc, but more perfect in expression. He also wrote at Naples The Sequel to the See also:Battle of the Frogs and Mice, a See also:satire in ottava rima on the abortive Neapolitan revolution of 1820, clever and humorous, but obscure from the See also:local character of the allusions. The more painful details of his Neapolitan residence may be found by those who care to seek for them in the deplorable publication of Ranieri's peevish old age (Sette anni di sodalizio). The decay of Leopardi's constitution continued; he became dropsical; and a sudden crisis of his malady, unanticipated by himself alone, put an end to his life-long sufferings on the 15th of June 1837. The poems which constitute Leopardi's principal title to See also:immortality are only See also:forty-one in number, and some of these are merely fragmentary. They may for the most part be described as odes, meditative soliloquies, or impassioned addresses, generally couched in a lyrical form, although a few are in magnificent See also:blank See also:verse. Some idea of the style and spirit of the former might be obtained by imagining the thoughts of the last See also:book of See also:Spenser's Faerie Queene in the See also:metre of his See also:Epithalamium. They were first edited See also:complete by Ranieri at Florence in 1845, forming, along with the Operette Morali, the first See also:volume of an edition of Leopardi's works, which does not, however, include The Sequel to the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, first printed at See also:Paris in 1842, nor the afterwards discovered writings. Vols. ii.-iv. contain the philological essays and See also:translations, with some letters, and vols. v. and vi. the See also:remainder of the correspondence. Later See also:editions are those of G. Chiarini and G. Mestica. The juvenile essays preserved in his father's library at Recanati were edited by Cugnoni (Opere inedite) in 1879, with the 'consent of the family. See Cappelleti, Bibliografia Leopardiana (See also:Parma, 1882). Leopardi's biography is mainly in his letters (Epistolario, 1st ed., 1849, 5th ed., 1892), to which his later biographers (See also:Brandes, Bouche-Leclercq, See also:Rosa) have merely added criticisms, excellent in their way, more particularly Brandes's, but generally over-rating Leopardi's significance in the history of human thought. W. E. See also:Gladstone's See also:essay (Quart. Rev., 1850), reprinted in vol. ii. of the author's Gleanings, is too much pervaded by the theological spirit, but is in the See also:main a See also:pattern of generous and discriminating eulogy. There are excellent German translations of the poems by See also:Heyse and Brandes. An See also:English See also:translation of the essays and dialogues by C. See also:Edwards appeared in 1882, and most of the dialogues were translated with extraordinary felicity by See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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