Pain

It would alas be all too easy to recall the quantity and quality of  “pain” suffered by Leopardi: from those physical linked to illness, to those spiritual, tied to philosophical reflection or perhaps unrequited love.

It is however good to be able to note how he was able to sublimate his pains in his works, transforming them, for readers, in occasions of learning and joy (in the Zibaldone, 259-62, it is written that the works of genius console us also when they show the nullity of things). As can be read in a passage in Paolo il Caldo (1955), by Vitaliano Brancati: “Leopardi, I know – he added as his fingers, running along a shelf, reached the binding of a copy of the Operette morali, – was pale like me, he suffered more than me. But there is sufferance that digs into a person like the holes in a flute, and the voice of the spirit comes out of them melodiously, ...”.

In the Zibaldone there is ample reflection on the theme of pain:

“Also the pain that comes from boredom and the sentiment of the vainness of things is far more bearable than boredom itself” [72] – diversity between ancient and modern pain, also in their artistic expression [76-9, 105, 2434-6, 2752-5] – “In the moment of vivid joy or vivid pain man is not susceptible either of compassion or of interest for others” [97-9] – pain in children [528-32, 1262] – also the memory of pain is pleasurable, for its vividness [1987-8] – time cancels all pain [2419-20] – “the pains of the soul are never comparable to the pains of the body” [2479] –death does not provoke pain, because pain is “something alive” [2182-4, 2566-7] – pain for the death of one’s dear ones [3430-2, 4277-9] – no one would want to relive their own life: this demonstrates how it is made up more of pain than pleasure [4283-4] – “The faculty of being able to feel is equally and indifferently disposed towards feeling pleasures and pains. Yet the things that produce a sensation of pain are incomparably more than those of pleasure” [4505-6].