Puerili

A vast series of texts, composed in Recanati between 1809 and 1812 (and published posthumously), testimony to Leopardi’s poetical apprenticeship as a boy, and of his condition at once exalting and sad of enfant prodige. What above all emerges is the experimentation of various compositional registers, based on a wide range of “models”, classic and Italian (in particular XVIII century), and a great variety of themes.

One thus goes from the five “idyllic” and “Arcadian” canzonettas in La Campagna (1809) to the “heroic” sonnet in La morte di Ettore (1809) and the other texts in a “classical” style, such as the complex Catone in Affrica (1810) or Le Notti Puniche (1810); from texts on biblical events, like the poem in sextets Il Balaamo (1810), or La morte di Abele (1810) and La morte di Saulle (1810), to others (such as L’Ucello, of 1810) which copy the style of XVIII century fairy tales; through to some compositions in Latin (Carmina varia, 1810), and theatrical texts.

Two parts of the “puerili” (puerile) appear worthy of note, in as far as they are test beds for language and style for future developments. The first is that of the translations: both from French and, in particular, Latin: among these, above all Arte poetica di Orazio travestita ed esposta in ottava rima (1811) and the thirty nine Epigrammi, accompanied by an interesting Discorso preliminare (1812). To these translations is tied the second enterprising branch: that of humorous texts. Many and pleasant are the “comic” texts, for example Contro la Minestra(Against Soup), of 1809, with the invocation to the Muse: “Not now of heroes, or of gods must you sing, / but only Soup load with injuriousness”, or the many texts addressed to his sister (Alla Signora Contessa Paolina Leopardi, 1810: “There was a time when one could / say to you what one wanted, / one could joke a bit / without making you burst into flames, / ...”).

The major part of the “puerili” has been edited by Maria Corti: “Entro dipinta gabbia”, Bompiani, Milan 1972.