SOURCE: Perella, Nicolas James. “The Sun and Midday in Leopardi.” In Night and the Sublime in Giacomo Leopardi, pp. 139-51. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970.

In the following excerpt, Perella examines Leopardi's many references in his lyric poetry to light, which he equated with happiness.

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Taking both day and night settings, the number of references to light in Leopardi's not very large output of lyric poetry is strikingly high. We have seen that brightness and clarity have for him a significant affective value of a positive kind (chapter I). In this connection, an entry made in the Zibaldone on August 19, 1823, explicitly equates light with happiness, and darkness with melancholy. The affirmation is made by way of illustrating the idea that the “spirit” of man is affected by external physical causes independently of habit:

Così, per esempio, la luce è naturalmente cagione di allegria, siccome le tenebre di malinconia; quella...