SOURCE: Williams, Pamela. “Leopardi's Philosophy of Consolation in ‘La ginestra’.” The Modern Language Review 93, no. 4 (October 1998): 985-96.

In the following essay, Williams discusses Leopardi's perception of the legitimate sources of human merit and solidarity in a world devoid of true purpose and meaning, as illustrated in his poem “La ginestra.”

The ‘philosophy of consolation’ of my title refers specifically to the famous third stanza of ‘La ginestra,’ a poem written in 1836, one year before the poet's death, at Torre del Greco, a small town on the lower slopes of Vesuvius. In the past fifty years this so-called ‘solidarity stanza’ has been the focus of much critical debate stimulated by studies published in 1947 by Cesare Luporini and Walter Binni.¹ It seems appropriate to return to this topic in a year that celebrates the 200th anniversary of Leopardi's birth. The scholars who have taken part in that debate have contextualized...