Leopardi's constant and on-going struggle with his surroundings is something that initially summoned me to approach his works existentially, but I resisted, choosing rather to highlight the Romantic aspects of his poetry, which he handles in a manner that is more classical. This is an interesting claim to make, considering that Romanticism was, at Leopardi's prime, a movement that was rather new and modern. With that being said, I do think that he rejected some of the more dominant elements of Romanticism, if only because the Romantic poetry during Leopardi's time sought to--as he put it--"drag poetry from the ancient state of nature to the modern state of civilization" (Horne). His classicism glistens is this statement, just as it does in his poem Sunday Evening, a piece that, despite its modern Romantic language, wades heavily in the waters of antiquity. Given the overwhelmingly broad introduction to Leopardi that I've come across in the readings, the remainder of this post will serve as somewhat of a close reading of Sunday Evening as I attempt to emphasize Leopardi's classical treatment of what were, during his time, modern subjects and thoughts found in plurality among the works of those Romantic writers of his time.
Giosure Carducci, like myself, is most fixated on Leopardi's unification of images an ideas from different times, a skill that undoubtedly requires a mastery of classical writing (Casale 53). I might even go as far to call the first half of the poem Romantic (I do so cautiously, as Leopardi held firmly to the idea that Romanticism "failed to gain a firm foothold in Italy" (Horne). He more than alludes to the powers of nature in the opening four lines; however, more than once he states that "the mind imagines the unseen--that which the that tree, that hedge, that tower hides from it--and goes wandering in an imaginary space..."(Casale 51). It is unclear to me here if he is valuing human imagination over nature, or the other way around. In line twelve, he seems to curse nature while calling it omnipotent at the same time: "I turn to face this sky/ Which to the eye appears benign, and this/ Omnipotent old Nature which fashioned me/ For suffering..." (Casale 54). Initially, I thought that the speaker of the poem was addressing a lover ("O my lady..."), but a second and third reading affirm the possibility that the speaker is in fact speaking to Nature herself, descriptions of whom flood the entirety of the poem (Casale 54). If nothing else, the sleeping lady is a parallel to nature--a vessel, if you will. A reading of the piece under this assumption further complicates the speaker's (and Leopardi's) view of nature. He directly address who I assume to be Nature in a manner suggesting submission--an act that would unmistakably be called characteristic of Romanticism, yet the remainder of the poem has subtle hints at a disconnect existing between the speaker and whom he is addressing ,whereas a Romantic piece would stress a unification of Man and Nature. This is especially evident when, in line 32, the poem takes a drastic shift toward Classicism: The question "Where are the sounds of all those ancient men?" begs an answer that, at least in my opinion, Nature cannot give (Casale 54). Supposing, as I just did, that Nature cannot provide answer to the speaker's question is to suppose that Leopardi finds a disconnect between the present and the past--a disconnect that more than likely points directly to his struggle with the existence of Classicism in a world where Romanticism is emerging.
Let me clarify that last statement: ubi sunt was mentioned in the introduction to this poem in the Leopardi reader as a motif of ancient poets, but no additional information regarding the meaning of the motif was given. In fact, it means "Where are..." and is taken from the Latin "Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt?," meaning "Where are those who were before us?" Leopardi's answer--the one that Nature couldn't seem to permit within the context of the poem--can actually be found in the lyrics: "The festive day/ Has fled, the common day day comes on, and Time/ Takes with it every human happening" (Casale 54). Here, he seems to be saying that Nature is a consuming force. The implication of this I have yet to understand, but I say the following with some new-found confidence: Leopardi's struggle with the nature about him is surely a struggle that eludes that passing of time, and his ability to bridge that elapse is perhaps what makes his poetry most striking.
Works Cited
Horne, John Van. "Studies on Leopardi: The Attitude of Leopardi toward Romanticism." University of Iowa Humanistic Studies 1.4 (1907): 3-14. Rpt. in Literature Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 2013. Literature Resource Center. Web. 3 Sept. 2013.
Casale, Ottavio M. "A Leopardi Reader." Paperback. A LEOPARDI READER: Giacomo Leopardi, Ottavio M. Casale. University of Illinois Press, 1981.
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