Life
as a Cycle
After reading about Leopardi and
examining his work, it seems that one of Leopardi’s main concepts illustrated
in his work conveys messages about the cycles of life. He tends to stress the
presence of the past and the importance of the future. A reoccurring theme
depicts human nature full of periods of happiness and sorrow, joy and tragedy,
and life and death. In his poem “The Calm After the Storm,” Leopardi writes,
“To be free of suffering for us is joy,” showing that in order to experience
the joys of life, one must go through suffering as well (93). In discussing
this poem, Pensieri highlights this significant idea of life as a periodic
cycle. He comments, “without ills, the good things would hardly be good, since
after a time they would annoy us, would lose their attraction, would no longer
give us pleasure; because the sensation of pleasure, if it is really pleasing,
never lasts very long” (94). I agree with Pensieri because I know that I can’t
take things for granted in life and I must appreciate the good people and
things that I have in life when I am going through worse times. In addition,
“The Calm After the Storm” displays the cycle of nature, showing how the people
of the town recover after the storm. Nature mirrors life itself; the storm
represents the suffering, while the “calm” following the bad times symbolizes
the joy and beauty of life. Without these cycles, life would be a blur of
similar events that would not stress the periods of growth and demise.
Leopardi also shows life as a cycle
in his poem “The Solitary Sparrow” through illustrating the passing day’s
events. He discusses the ending of the day, and the day being “spent” and
“turning into dusk” (87). Nature’s power of keeping life as a periodic cycle is
important, and Leopardi describes, “my gaze is struck/ by the Sun that, sinking
between/ the distant hills, after the clear day, / grows weak and seems to be
saying/ that blessed youth is waning” (89). While Leopardi references the past
and present, he also discusses the future. The future seems skeptical and not
as warming as the past, as he notes, “and the coming day/ more tedious and
bleaker than/ the present one” (89). Leopardi’s final line is “but, dejected, I
will look back,” and is very interesting to me. I do think that the older one
gets, the more he or she tends to reflect on life. However, I believe that
people should continue to look forward and not give up on all of what the
future has to offer. For many, the future brings more hope and delight than the
past, and while Leopardi has enjoyed the past days, it may be incorrect of him
to believe that he will be sad and only want to look back on the past.
The poem “Saturday in the Village”
also depicts the idea that the past and present are brighter than the future.
Leopardi writes, “This, of the seven, is the most/ welcome day, full of hope
and joy:/ tomorrow the hours will bring sadness/ and boredom, and everyone will
start/ thinking again about routine chores” (99). This future is inevitable,
again showing life as a cycle, and the poem displays that life’s events will
not be easy and enjoyable every day. Since Pensieri comments that man can’t
have a life full of pleasure, he notes, “the only pleasure that exists is a
future pleasure…” (100). I am not exactly sure if this is what Leopardi would
agree with, but it definitely illustrates that life is full of periods of
pleasure and dejection.
I do agree with you on the notion that Leopardi believes that in order to experience happiness, one must also experience periods of dejection and sorrow. Leopardi believes in a yin and yang world where everything must have a mixture of good and bad in order for us to experience the good more fully because we also know what the bad feels like.
ReplyDeleteI partially disagree with your analysis of Leopardi when referring to time. He sees the future as dismal because when he was around 16 or 17, those were the best years of his life. He says this because it was when he was still full of hope and ignorance for what his life, so he imagined his future in whatever way he wanted. When his desires were left empty, this caused him to be progressively senile as time went on, and that is why he says youth is better than age.