Giacomo Leopardi

Canti — Italy's greatest modern poet

The greatest Italian poet after Dante and Petrarch, and the most uncompromising pessimist in European literature. The Canti — especially L'infinito, A Silvia, and La ginestra — achieve a lyric intensity that places him alongside Keats and Holderlin. His Zibaldone is one of the great intellectual journals.

Key works

• Canti1831/1835— 41 poems — L'infinito, A Silvia, La ginestra
• Zibaldone1817-1832— 4,500 pages of thought — published posthumously

Connections

External