|
Categories: Science fiction Fantasy Mystery Romance Business Classic Sports Young adult Humor Memoirs See all categories... |
|
Categories: Science fiction Fantasy Mystery Romance Business Classic Sports Young adult Humor Memoirs See all categories... |
"The name of Giacomo Leopardi is not yet a household word in the mouths of Englishmen. Few of us have heard of him ; still fewer have read any of his writings. If known at all, he is probably coupled, in a semi-contemptuous manner, with other foreign representatives of a phase of poetic thought, the influence of which has passed its zenith. As a contemporary of Byron, Leopardi is perhaps credited with a certain amount of psychological plagiarism, and possibly disregarded as a mere satellite of the greater planet. But if this be so, it is unjust. His fame is his own, and time makes his isolation and grand individuality more and more prominent. What Byron and Shelley, Millevoye, Baudelaire and Gautier, Heine and Platen, Pouchkine and Lermontoff, are to England, France, Germany, and Russia respectively, Leopardi is, in a measure, to Italy. But he is more than this. The jewel of his renown is triple-faceted. Philology, poetry, and philosophy."