SOURCE: Corrigan, Beatrice. “The Poetry of Leopardi in Victorian England 1837-1878.” English Miscellany 14 (1963): 171-84.

In the following essay, Corrigan discusses Leopardi's reputation in England in the mid-nineteenth century.

«The first time an Englishman ever mentioned the name of Leopardi in print was, we believe, in a recent novel», wrote George Henry Lewes in an anonymous contribution to Fraser's Magazine in 1848¹. «Yet Germany has long known and cherished Leopardi. Even France, generally so backward in acknowledging a foreigner, has, on several occasions, paid tribute to his genius».

Some of Leopardi's poems had indeed been translated into German as early as 1823², and he had been the subject of an article in France in 1833³. But during his lifetime an unfortunate barrier had already risen between English and Italian men of letters. No longer did English poets seek out, as Byron had done in Milan in 1816, their Italian confreres, and the English...