A confrontation with antiquity is central to all of Leopardi’s work, from his reflections on poetry (in Discorso intorno alla poesia romantica) to his scritti saggistici (essays) and filologici (philological), through to his lyrical experiences (such as the Cantos Ad Angelo Mai and Alla Primavera).
In the Zibaldone, and not only, he centres his thoughts upon the ability of the “ancient” to experience “illusions”, unlike the “inciviliti” or civilised modern people:
“the ancient left to conjecture more than they spoke, and the impression left by their works was more lasting” [86-7] – the ancient were strong, constant and magnanimous, full of vigour and enthusiasm [90, 96-7, 2434-6, 4185] – they sustained their body and soul with physical exercise, contrary to modern people [115, 125, 163-4, 207-8, 1330-2] – in antiquity illusions and passions were stronger [271-2, 680-3, 2753-5, 2766-7] – ancient societies were based upon, unlike those modern, a sense of patriotism and hatred towards foreigners [876-911] – typical of ancient wars [930-1, 1004-7, 1362, 2305-6] – southerliness of ancient cultures [1027, 4256] – the style of ancient language, as against the modern ones [1470-2, 1482-4, 2172-3, 2282-91, 2917-9, 3471-7, 3996] – “the ancient, living, did not fear death, and the modern, not living, fear it” [3030-1] – the ancient (contrary to modern people) aimed at eternity, thanks to imagination and illusions [3435-40] – the ancient did not believe the distance between mankind and the divine to be infinite [3494-6, 3544-5] – “the pleasure that we get from poetry, I say ancient poetry and that of imagery; among its reasons, has as one of the principle ones, if not the one that is the absolutely most principal, confused remembrance of our childhood that is awakened by such poetry” [4472].
Antiquity
