SOURCE: Arnold, Matthew. “Byron.” In English Literature and Irish Politics, edited by R. H. Super, pp. 217-37. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1973.

In the following excerpt, originally published in 1882, Arnold compares Leopardi with the English poets Lord Byron and William Wordsworth.

We will take three poets, among the most considerable of our century: Leopardi, Byron, Wordsworth. Giacomo Leopardi was ten years younger than Byron, and he died thirteen years after him; both of them, therefore, died young—Byron at the age of thirty-six, Leopardi at the age of thirty-nine. Both of them were of noble birth, both of them suffered from physical defect, both of them were in revolt against the established facts and beliefs of their age; but here the likeness between them ends. The stricken poet of Recanati had no country, for an Italy in his day did not exist; he had no audience...