Talk:Giacomo Leopardi

Marj, Deep thanks for your help with my bad text. I realise I used a very confused "italianish" language - ooops! :-)

About Leopardi and Coleridge, I don't think they were able to meet, as I have read (on the timeline in your site at Virginia.edu) that Coleridge was not in Italy in the years in which Leopardi was travelling. There are some differences among the sources about Leopardi's travels, indeed, but approximately the periods should however be around 1822 (Rome) and 1825-1837. A google search made me find references to many works that compare them, and at a first sight it seems there is something to investigate. Unfortunately, on my side I am not so fond of Coleridge, but now I have found an interesting site :-)

Talking about his passage from erudition to beauty, I intended saying that Leopardi left the style of Arcadia for the newer one (which effectively was beginning to sound as an archaism at the time). Arcadia was the name of a movement (named after the region, supposed a bucolic symbol) that was born in Rome as a reaction to baroque in literature, with Metastasio as its major writer. At the time Leopardi started writing, it was quite influential to him, but he later realised the false (formal, somehow mannerist) taste of Arcadia and abandoned it for a more linear composing style (also, the passage was from a study-focused activity, to a prevalence of composition). I don't know if Arcadia is known abroad, whether it eventually is called in some other way, and I wonder if it's worth an article on Wikipedia, being a minor movement of italian literature and I haven't found many others here yet. --Gianfranco

I checked the indices of some of my Coleridge books, and he doesn't seem to have known of Leopardi. It would be interesting if they had met - they seem to have had a lot in common. Sorry about the archaic/Arcadia mixup - using archaic language in poetry was popular around the turn of the 18th-19th century in the UK, at least. -- Marj Tiefert, Tuesday, April 9, 2002

I dolci di Giacomo

This article would lead one to believe that Leopardi only developed a taste for ice-cream after arriving in Naples. While it's true that he celebrates a particular ice-cream maker in a satirical poem from the Neapolitan period (I nuovi credenti-- "The born-agains"), Iris Origo's biography of the poet puts forward the case that Leopardi had an insatiable sweet-tooth from very early on. His father complains about the boy's habit of using sugar less as a sweetener than as a thickening agent in his coffee. Evidently, it was a lifelong addiction. --Spatz

Huge Topic

Giacomo Leopardi is ENORMOUS: brilliant poet, innovative philologist, master of prose, historian of science, master of languages, philopopher who anticipated and deeply influenced both Shopenhauer (mildly acknowledged) and Nietzche (arrogantly unacknowelged).

This entry should be just as ENORMOUS. I have almost infinite resources on Leopardi and will work on this when I get the chance.

--Lacatosias 09:54, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Ahhh, I told you I'd get around to expanding it didn't I. Of course, I'm not even half-way through yet. Italians don't seem to care so much about excessive length as you english-speaking folks. The biography of Zanzotti is about 90 KB and was a featrured artcile. HAAAAHAAAAAHAAAAA!!!--Lacatosias 14:06, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Schopenhauer & Nietzsche

I had to remove the sentence that claimed that Leopardi influenced Schopenhauer & Nietzsche. However, in its stead, I added a quotation from Schopenhauer that showed his appreciation and understanding of Leopardi's writings. I don't think Nietzsche ever mentioned Leopardi, but I will research.Lestrade 00:27, 11 June 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

Influence is certainly a difficult thing to demonstrate among philosophers and/or poets who were each ferociously individualistic and, at least in the cases of Leopardi and Nietszhce, almost anti-systematic in their writings. But 1) Neitzche did indeed mention Leopardi quite extensively. There is a entire collection of writings/letters/etc. on the topic of Leopardi by Neitzche published in Italian as Freidrich Nietzche: Intorno a Leopardi (About Leopardi), edited by Cesare Galimberti, postscript by Gianni Scalia, Genova, Il Melangolo, 1992. I don't know if there is an English translation, but you Americans would do exceedingly well to learn some foreign langauges and break out of your Anglo-centric bubbles in any case. The secondary literature on the relationship between the three authors (in Italian) is vast. Here are only a very few examples:

Mario Andrea Rigoni, Il Pensiero di Leopardi, Milano, Bompiani, 1997.

Carlo Ferrucci, Leopardi filosofo, Venice, Marsilio, 1987.

Antonio Negri, "Lenta ginestra. Saggio sull'ontologia di G.L, Milano, Sugarco, 1987.

AA.VV., Leopardi e il pensiero moderno, edited by Carlo Ferrucci.

Emanuele Severino, Il Nulla e la poesia. Alla fine del età della tecnica: Leopardi. Milano, Rizzoli, 1990.

Francesco Iengo, Momenti di crtitica alla modernità da Leopardi a Neitzsche, Rome, Bulzoni, 1992.

Massimo Cacciari, Ermeneutiche Leopardiane..

Antimo Negri, Interminati Spazi ed eterno ritorno. Neitzsche e Leopardi., Florence. Le Lettere, 1994.

Giuseppe Gabetti, Neitzche e Leopardi in "Il Convegno" IV, 1923,

Alberto Caracciolo, Leopardi e Nichilismo. Milan. Bompiani, 1994,.

Marco Fortunato, Il Sogetto e la necessità Akronos, Leopardi, Neitszche e il problema del dolore.

etc. etc, etc....--Lacatosias 16:29, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Let's look at the writings themselves. The only references that I can find on Leopardi in Nietzsche's writings are as follows:

• "Not including Goethe, who may fairly be claimed by the century that produced him, I regard only Giacomo Leopardi, Prosper Mérimée,Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Walter Savage Landor, the author of Imaginary Conversations, as worthy of being called masters of prose." (Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft §92)
• "While Sébastien Chamfort, a man who was rich in depths and backgrounds of the soul - gloomy, suffering, ardent – a thinker who needed laughter as a remedy against life and who almost considered himself lost on every day on which he had not laughed – seems much more like an Italian, related to Dante and Leopardi, than like a Frenchman!" (Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft, §95)
• "Those great poets, for example – men like Byron, Musset, Poe, Leopardi, Kleist, Gogol (I do not dare mention greater names, but I mean them) – are and perhaps must be men of fleeting moments, enthusiastic, sensual, childish, frivolous, and sudden in trust and mistrust,...." (Jenseits von Gute und Böse, §269)
• "...I bewared in time, with some sort of regret, of the German and Christian narrowness and inconsequence of pessimism à la Schopenhauer or, worse, Leopardi, and sought out the most quintessential forms (Asia)" (Der Wille zur Macht, §91)

Nietzsche never mentions Leopardi without including him generally in a series with other writers. This is unlike the Schopenhauer quote, in which we are given a specific comment on Leopardi alone, and even individualized praise.Lestrade 19:10, 16 June 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

You wrote these exact words above: I don't think Nietzsche ever mentioned Leopardi, but I will research. I don't think I need to point out the contradiction. From the first quote alone, one gathers that Nietzche conidered Leopardi to be one of the four greatest living [b]prose[/b] stylists of that century. Not bad, considering that he was fundamntally a poet. As I suggested though, if you want to really understand the question of influence, you need to consult the secondary literature on the topic. Personally, I don't consider either of them to have been philosophers---certainly they were not trained philosophers---but precisely poets and prose stylists. The difference is that Leopardi, while being far, far greater in both respects, is very little known outside of Italy while Neitzche's writings were made famous by various circumstances (such as being manipulated as propaganda by the Nazis and being extensively cited by the existentialists, etc..). A certain amount of trans-Nordic racism may not have hurt either. But I'll leave it to English readers to learn (this would however require reading all 4,500 pages of the Zibaldone in a good translation---which doesn't exist) and judge for themselves. --Lacatosias 08:34, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

At first, I hadn't recalled any mention of Leopardi in Nietzsche's writings. Later, after my research, I found a few references. My inability to recall any references may have been due to the absence of particular information that Nietzsche's references supplied. This is in contrast to the specific, clear ideas that Schopenhauer provided. Also, whether any deep thinking writer can be labelled "philosopher" or "prose stylist" should not be of any importance. These men were far beyond the limits of conventional labels.Lestrade 17:10, 17 June 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

Agreed. All three were visionaries who were able to express truly profound and tragic insights about the human condition and the universe in clear and powerful language and (in the cases of Leopardi and Neitzche anyway) images and examples. Very, very few people are able to combine the two elements: talent for verbal expression and deep widson or insight. Best thing that we can do, I suspect, is to just urge people to read for themselves.--Lacatosias 07:55, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Schopenhauer's writings are filled with images and examples, as any reader would know. Many of Nietzsche's images and examples were taken from Schopenhauer.Lestrade 12:13, 23 June 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

Of course they are. All I can tell you, though, is that I don't quite literally cry when I read the writings of Shopenhauer as I am often moved to do when I read some of the poetry of Leopardi. --Lacatosias 13:11, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Schopenhauer's works were meant to make you think, not cry. Philosophy is not poetry. Each has its own effect and should be judged accordingly. If they were the same, they would have the same name.Lestrade 17:56, 10 July 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

You are a hopelessly confrontational bastard, aren't you? Do you actually DO anything else on Wikipedia. My point is simple: poets are generally the absolute masters of imagery, metaphor and langauge (that IS what we was being discussed above , after all), their are few poets in the histiry of the world as great as Leopardi. Shopenhauer is certianly not one of them (notwithstanding all of his other qualities). This is the reason I stated that they were all masters of language and imagery, but especially Leopardi and Neitzche (another poet) in my opinion. My intent was not to diminish Shopenhauer in any way. I think that should have been obvious from the context. Period.--Lacatosias 07:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

And, of course, I don't it's difficult to cite examples of poets who can and do indeed make one think. Shakespeare and Dante are the most obvious examples. Some of the greatest poets can often make one think and move one's emotions at the same time. --Lacatosias 08:16, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Santayana's Three Philosophical Poets described the philosophical poetry of Lucretius, Dante, and Goethe. It's possible that your definition of greatness in a poet may be true, although some people might say that poetic greatness can exist within the realm of feeling and emotion alone. Schopenhauer wrote some poetry, as can be seen from the following example:

The Lydian Stone, a Fable

On a black stone the gold was rubbed,

Yet no yellow streak was left.

" ' Tis not fine gold!" they all exclaimed.

And as base metal it was cast aside.

' Twas later found that this black stone

Despite its color no touchstone was.

The gold was unearthed was now to honor restored.

Genuine stone alone can genuine gold assay.

Although this poem may make a reader think, it isn't included among the great poems. Lestrade 14:07, 11 July 2006 (UTC)Lestrade