SOURCE: Gerato, Erasmo G. “Reality of Illusion and Illusion of Reality in Leopardi's Zibaldone.” South Atlantic Bulletin 41, no. 2 (May 1976): 117-25.

In the following essay, Gerato traces Leopardi's increasingly negative assessment of reason, which the poet came to identify as the source of humanity's unhappiness.

Illusion is perhaps the most essential element in the pensiero of Leopardi, becoming in the end the sole concept capable of rendering life bearable not only for the poet himself but for all of humanity as well.

This study aims at tracing the theme of illusion in the development of Leopardi's thought, especially in relation to one of the poet's least-known works, the Zibaldone. We shall further attempt to show how momentous the presence of illusion was for the poet and how with the passing of time its importance increased.¹

Reflecting on reason as it contrasts with nature, Leopardi mentions, for the first time...