Operette and Canti

1
Operette and Canti

• Giacomo Leopardi

2
Copernicus

• The suns decision (why)
• Reasons adduced by the first hour
• Who convinced the sun to race around like a
  madman?
• Consider the suns words to race, in spite of
  my great size, around a grain of sand? What is
  emphasized here? Are there other places where the
  sun belittles the earth? (167)
• Who is better suited to convince the earth to
  move the battle between poetry and philosophy
  (167-8)
• Copernicus opinion of the Earths (171) and
  Mans position in the old system. Consequences of
  a change (172), even for the sun (173)
• The suns promise to Copernicus
• Use of irony throughout the Operetta
• Leopardis position as illustrated in Copernicus
• Central theme of the Operetta

3
Dialogue Between a Pedlar of Almanachs and a
Wayfarer

• Characters and their outlook towards the future
  and the past
• What makes us wish the pasts return?
• What makes one shy away from his own past?
• Why does the wayfarer buy the almanach?
• Central theme of the dialogue
• Leopardis phiosophical position regarding time -
  future - past - hope - desire

4
Dialogue Between Tristan and a Friend

• Tristans position on life and on who thinks life
  is happy (178-9)
• What will humanity never believe (179)
• What makes Tristan change his mind? (180)
• What does the nineteenth century believe (181)
• The ancients and the modern in Tristans mind
  (181)
• Considerations on knowledge (182)
• Superiority of the XIX century is based on
• On the masses and the individuals (183)
• On books (183-4)
• On mediocrity and nullity Tristans position on
  the different historical epochs (184)
• Central theme of the Operetta

5
The Canti

• To Sylvia
• Sylvia represents the symbol of youth lost in
  death
• The end of youthful illusions
• The definite collapsing of all hopes
• Sylvia is the figure in which Leopardi
  illustrates his idea of the existence as
  misfortune the conflict between a benign Nature
  (mother), which inspires the hopes and dreams of
  youth and a malign Nature, which presents the
  reality of didillusionment and of death
• Canto notturno (Night Song..)
• Here Leopardis thought is condensed all in this
  world is vanity and misery
• The from the furious sense of unhappiness to the
  resignation (awareness of the incumbent evil).

6

• Not a moment of pleasure but the gradual
  awakening to the harshness of life, the
  continuous immersion in the self, the abandoning
  of self to a limited and individual reality
• Central themes allegory of human life -
  knowledge and ignorance- ennui (boredom) - nature
• Imagination and invention dominate (gravitate
  around reason)
• Reason is a human capacity to analyze reality, in
  order to reach the truth
• Mans meditations on himself are strictly
  connected with the representation of reality
  (meditation becomes representation)
• One does not need to reminisce the past to
  realize his desperation, one just needs to look
  at the present, to understand that the passing
  years have brought more boredom and unhappiness
• The sum of the sentiments expressed in the canto
  is translated in the condition of ennui
  (boredom), the absence of pain (which is not
  necessarily the presence of pleasure) and of
  pleasure

7

• Two main themes appear in the poem
• The moon represents the life of the cosmos, the
  moon knows and sees everything, in it we can find
  the profound serenity that is inherent in all
  things, serenity that derives from the knowledge
  of the beginnings and of the ends for which
  things are created. The moon is the most visible
  and immediate symbol of the universe, it knows of
  the passage of time, of the past seasons, of
  mans essence. What characterizes cosmic life is
  the knowability of all things, which man does not
  possess. This brings desolation - ignorance - man
  does not know his origin or his objective - the
  reason or mechanisms of his rapport with others.
• Not knowing anything, man lives in solitude and
  isolation, his feelings are sadness and suffering
  (they are irresoluble)
• Hope (which could alleviate the sense of
  suffering) is absent
• The voice knows only its own frailty, its boredom

8

• Mans condition can be divided in three
  fundamental moments
• 1) the primordial age (prehistoric - no
  documentation)
• 2) the moment defined by historical pessimism
  man have to form communities, live together,
  create laws (that will ultimately limit their
  freedom and cause his unhappiness). Man can
  overcome this impasse by taking shelter in Nature
  (The Infinite), where the poet abandons himself
  to an illusory happiness and in the sweetness of
  a foundering that is the product of the
  imagination and not of the existential reality
• 3) of cosmic pessimism the poet cannot overcome
  his unhappiness because he is overwhelmed by the
  unhappiness of the world in which he lives. The
  world itself cannot overcome its unhappy
  condition, dominated as it is by the infelicity
  of the world systems in which it is located.
  Cosmos as abyss, void in which man precipitates

9

• The Infinite
• It is an idyll that expresses on one side the
  solitude mixed to a yet unaware unhappiness, on
  the other the victory over this condition through
  the contemplation of Nature and its beauty
• This idyll is the manifesto of modern poetry,
  which longs for and founders in the expectation
  of the new. The poem rests on correspondences
  (Baudelaire) between the earth and the sky,
  between silence and the voice of nature, between
  the inaccessible and what can be seen.
• The divisions of the poem
• 1) always 2) but sitting and gazing 3)and like
  (when I hear) 4) and thus
• The structure of the poem is binary 1) to the
  hedgerow (the real world, that is seen and
  experienced) 2) beyond the hedgerow (the surreal,
  imagined immensity of the unknown)

10

• (The reality beyond the hedgerow exists and
  represents what one longs to experience and live)
  (This present that the other reality)
• Suddenly something happens the contingent
  reality becomes distant, is pushed aside by the
  spirit, by the imagination, and the other reality
  comes near, so that the poet is almost afraid (of
  the immensity that opens in front of his eyes)
• The other reality draws so near (in the
  imagination) that the poet immerses himself in
  it, savoring its great sweetness
• The only elements of reality are the hill, the
  hedgerow, the ruffling of the leaves (voice of
  the wind). From these elements is born the
  contemplation of the infinite that leads to the
  most infinite silences and the most profound
  peace.
• The hedgerow represents the separating limit
  between the two realities, but also the sense of
  exclusion

11

• The hedge was always dear to the poet, and now?
  Now he is seeking something new, he imagines a
  different world, where the uncertainty (and yet
  the desire) scare him
• The landscape represents the infinity, the
  divine, the connection not only with the reality
  of the world, but with the ultra-metaphysical
  reality
• The voice of the wind leads the poet from the
  contingent to the other, desired, reality. It is
  assimilated to the voice of the superhuman
  silence of the boundless spaces in which one can
  reach the most profound peace. The immensity
  transforms itself in absolute reality in which
  human thought can drown. The voice of the wind
  brings the correspondence between the past
  seasons and the present, between the past (as
  illusion of happiness) and the present, the only
  time that can now produce sensations, emotions
  and that will soon lose its vitality (it will
  become past)