During his youth in Recanati (at the time of the “puerili”) Leopardi composed two theatrical works. The first, the tragedy in hendecasyllables La virtù indiana, was offered to his father for Christmas of 1811, with a letter in which Leopardi declared he had been encouraged by his example (Monaldo had, between 1799 and 1803, composed the tragedies Montezuma, Il Convertito and Il Traditore); in the Preface he illustrates the “subject” (there would seem to be no reference to the father-son relationship): “An Indian monarch thrown from his tottering throne and killed by a traitor; a prince, who despite his father’s murderers takes the throne and goes to the extreme of reconciling himself with his enemies”. The second text, the “political” tragedy in hendecasyllables Pompeo in Egitto, was composed in 1812, and drawn from the death of Pompeus, betrayed by Ptolemy the king of Egypt and his councillors in an attempt to ingratiate Caesar.
Both works are strongly influenced by del XVIII century Jesuit theatre; in particular Pompeo in Egitto is part of that genre that is termed “heroic”, very visible in the “puerili”, that was to appear again later in the “patriotic” canzoni All’Italia and Sopra il monumento di Dante: “Pompeus fell, the proud will quiver, / hated oppressor, Pompeus did not fall, / no, his military valour was not vanquished”, Pompeo in Egitto, vv. 138-40.
Leopardi programmed a further three theatrical works, that never went beyond being sketched out: Maria Antonietta in 1816 (the character also appears in Ricordi d’infanzia e di adolescenza); Erminia and Telesilla between 1818 and 1819.
In following years Leopardi was to loose all interest in theatre, to the point of criticising it heavily in the Zibaldone (a latently theatrical dimension is visible in some dialogues in the Operette morali, and in the Paralipomeni).
The publication of the Teatro was overseen by Isabella Innamorati (Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Rome 1999).
Works for the theatre
