SOURCE: Caesar, Michael. “Leopardi and the Knowledge of the Body.” Romance Studies 19 (winter 1991): 21-36.

In the following essay, Caesar rejects earlier critical views that equated Leopardi's own physical limitations with his pessimism and agnosticism, focusing instead on the body as “disputed territory in Leopardi's work.”

Natura umana, or come, Se frale in tutto e vile, Se polve ed ombra sei, tant'alto senti? Se in parte anco gentile, Come i più degni tuoi moti e pensieri Son così di leggeri Da sì basse cagioni e desti e spenti? 

Englished by Ezra Pound with due pathos—O mortal nature, / If thou art / Frail and so vile in all, / How canst thou reach so high with thy poor sense; / Yet if thou art / Noble in any part / How is the noblest of thy speech and thought / So lightly wrought / Or to such base occasion lit and quenched?¹—these lines complete one...