Leopardi's Pleasure

Pleasure is not an easy feeling for one to experience. It requires a desire to even set out on the long journey in finding it. Without pain and sorrow, one is incapable of even grasping the essence of pleasure.

In discussing the interworking of pleasure, Leopardi’s evaluations are broad at first, leaving little room for the reader to disagree with his opinion. Pleasure “has no limits in extent because it is substantial in us,” (Young 50). Pleasure is a feeling we all desire from the day we are born until the day we die. In achieving pleasure, we are reaching a certain point of happiness. But as Leopardi says pleasure is never completely reached, because the desire for pleasure is infinite. If reaching a point of ultimate pleasure were possible, then life itself would be pointless. Life is the everlasting search for the desires we crave, a journey that can only be ended through death. But even in death, the journey is not complete. We are all left wanting more in our final moments of life. Yet, as we age, our pursuit of pleasure weakens. Leopardi believes the happiest moments of life can be seen “in children,” (Young 51), as they withhold a great imagination due to their ignorance of the world. As we age and become more aware of the world around us we begin to forgo our imagination and pursuit of pleasure and happiness. This is the natural response of prioritizing comfort in the material world we live in. So often adults find themselves in a job they hate, but are unable to break away from the comfort their paycheck ensures. Essentially they sacrifice their desire for pleasure, leaving them susceptible to a loss of purpose. 

Yet, Leopardi’s belief that “human happiness cannot consist of anything outside the imagination and the illusions,” (Young 51), based around the idea that infinite pleasure is also only found in the imagination is frustrating. While I find that complete pleasure is impossible to obtain, I do feel there are pleasures that bring upon happiness on a certain scale that are real, one of which being love. Love happens to be one of the greatest pleasures both physically and emotionally, and is something impossible to imagine. Therefore, Leopardi’s belief that the “unknown is more lovely than the known,” (Young 51), is false. In order to love something or someone there must be a connection, one that requires knowledge and understanding of what they love, two things that are real in their existence. Therefore not all happiness is imagined because when love is real, few things can deter one from the happiness it brings.