Crestomazia italiana: La prosa

by Giacomo Leopardi, Giulio Bollati (Introduction)

Excerpt from Crestomazia Italiana, Cioè Scelta di Luoghi Insigni, o per Sentimento o per Locuzione, Vol. 1: Raccolti Dagli Scritti Italiani di Autori Eccellenti di Ogni Secolo; Crestomazia Prosaica

609 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1926

About the author

Italian scholar, poet, essayist and philosopher, one of the great writers of the 19th century.
Leopardi's love problems inspired some of his saddest lyrics. Despite having lived in a small town, Leopardi was in touch with the main ideas of the Enlightenment movement. His literary evolution turned him into one of the well known Romantic poets.
In his late years, when he lived in an ambiguous relationship with his friend Antonio Ranieri on the slopes of Vesuvius, Leopardi meditated upon the possibility of the total destruction of humankind.
Leopardi was a contemporary of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, with whom he shared a similarly pessimistic view of life. The latter praised Leopardi's philosophical thoughts on The World as Will and Representation.