Leopardi is considered the greatest Italian poet of the 19th century and one of the most important figures in the literature of the world, as well as one of the most renowned Romantics; his constant reflection on existence and on the human condition - of sensuous and materialist inspiration - has also earned him a reputation as a deep philosopher. He is widely seen as one of the most radical and challenging thinkers of the 19th century, but generally compared to his older contemporary, Alessandro Manzoni, despite expressing completely opposite positions. Although he lived in a secluded town in the conservative Papal States, he came into contact with the main ideas of the Enlightenment, and through his own literary evolution, created a outstanding poetic work, related to the Romantic era. Read here.
His themes are mutability, landscape, love; his attitude, one of unflinching realism in the face of unavoidable human loss. But the manners of the poems are an amalgam of philosophical toughness and the lyrically bittersweet. In a way more pure and distilled than most others in the Western tradition, his poems are truly what Matthew Arnold asked all poetry to be, a “criticism of life.”
Leopardi was a contemporary of the great English
Romantic poets such as Shelley, Keats and Byron who lived in Italy, though he never had the
chance to meet them. Read here.
