SOURCE: Urbancic, Anne. “Reflecting on a Moment of Calm: Leopardi's ‘La Quiete Dopo La Tempesta.’”¹ Rivista di Studi Italiani 16, no. 1 (December 1998): 519-36.

In the following essay, Urbancic discusses an especially tumultuous time in Leopardi's life that was followed by a period of calm during which he composed the lyric poems of the “grandi idilli.”

On September 5, 1829, an angry and resentful Leopardi begins to write a letter to Carlo Bunsen in Rome,² a task which he surmises will take three or four days because of his debilitated physical state. The main purpose of the letter, to congratulate Bunsen on the inception of the Giornale archeologico and to decline the invitation to participate as contributor, is completely overshadowed by the profound bitterness and hopelessness that envelops him. Leopardi writes:

Non solo i miei occhi, ma tutto il mio fisico, sono in istato peggiore che fosse mai. Non posso né scrivere...