Response to Foscolo

            In Ugo Foscolo’s book, The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis, Foscolo discusses the idea of unattainable love. Through out the book, Jacopo Ortis writes to his friend Lorenzo about his love of Theresa, who is already been promised to a young man named Odoardo. We can see through out the book that he is struggling, feeling that he will never be happy unless he is with Theresa. The love that Ortis has for her is so strong that he will never give it up even though he can never be with her. He will love her and her alone. One quote that describes how strong his love for her is and why it is so resilient is all summed up when he says, “ However, you often heard me exclaim that everything depends on the heart! On the heart, which neither heaven nor earth, nor our best intentions can ever change” (Foscolo 28). He is saying no matter how hard it is for him to not be with her, he will never stop loving her because his heart has already been given to her and he can’t take it back.

The aspect of love in this book reminds me of Leopardi’s idea of happiness and pleasure.  In Leopardi’s text he says that no person can ever obtain complete happiness or pleasure in life and that all that is left in life is death. In this book Ortis knows that he will never be with Theresa, she is that pleasure he is consistently striving for in life. Since he knows she is unattainable to him, he like Leopardi believes that death is the only step he needs to face. Unlike Leopardi though, Ortis actually takes his life and kills himself by stabbing himself below the heart and bleeding out. It is very sad that he had to take his life, but is shows us as readers the passion and authenticity of his love for Theresa. He felt so strongly that he could never be happy in a life without being with her so he just ended his life. 

Works Cited

Foscolo, Ugo. Last letters of Jacopo Ortis. London: Hesperus, 2002. Print.