SOURCE: Singh, G. “The Role of Melancholy and the Concept of Poetic Inspiration.” In Leopardi and the Theory of Poetry, pp. 64-86. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1964.

In the following essay, Singh considers the philosophical significance of suffering and inspiration in Leopardi's theoretical writings on poetry.

In so far as modern poetry is concerned, Leopardi, like so many poets before and after him, considered melancholy as something more congenial to poetic sentiment than cheerfulness. And it is not only more congenial to poetic sentiment, but also more conducive to the discovery of truth, and hence more useful to philosophers, than cheerfulness. At one point, and that through the creative philosophical value of melancholy, the antagonism, or what Leopardi himself calls the “unsurmountable barrier, a mortal enmity,”¹ between philosophical or scientific truth and poetic illusion, is broken down and a common ground is found where both can meet in...