Leopardi and the Symbol of the Renaissance: Poetry beyond the Measurement of the World

Karp, Morris

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Year:: 2021
Contributor:: Karp, Morris (creator); Riva, Massimo (Advisor); Martinez, Ronald (Reader); Stewart Steinberg, Suzanne (Reader); Velotti, Stefano (Reader); Brown University. Department of Italian Studies (sponsor)
Genre:: theses
Subject:: Romanticism; Aesthetics; China; Leopardi, Giacomo, 1798-1837; Risorgimento; Renaissance; critique of modernity; mathesis universalis; conformability; Perfection; transcendental; Metaphysics; bare life; Columbus, Christopher; Ariosto, Lodovico, 1474-1533
Extent:: , None p.

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Abstract:: Morris Karp Leopardi and the Symbol of the Renaissance: Poetry beyond Measurement Dissertation Abstract Chapter 1 The Conversation on the Renaissance at the Gabinetto Vieusseux The first half of the 19th century marks an intermediate point in the development of the concept of Renaissance. From Enlightenment historiography’s multiplicity of Renaissances, gradually emerges a new conception of the Renaissance as a phenomenon encompassing all aspects of social life. This transformation happens in the context of a transnational debate about the origin of liberal ideals. The Gabinetto Vieusseux in Florence was one of the centers where this new conception of Renaissance was elaborated. Here, the different interpretations of the Renaissance expressed alternative understandings of Italian history and alternative political agendas about the future of Italy. The debate on the Renaissance was therefore an occasion to put different political factions in conversation, fostering the construction of a public sphere in Italy. Chapter 2 The Concept of History in Leopardi Leopardi's interpretation of the Renaissance can be historically understood in the context of the debate on the Renaissance happening at the Gabinetto Vieusseux. Yet, in many respects Leopardi's meditation is characterized by a pronounced originality and can be fully understood only within the frame of his philosophical thought. In the pages of the Zibaldone Leopardi develops a reflection on the concept of history which only partially fits within the frame of Romantic historiography. Embracing a strongly materialistic point of view, Leopardi defines history as the science of those things that happen only once. From this conception Leopardi derives the idea that certain fundamental steps in the history of humanity (such as the invention of fire, of navigation and of writing) have happened only at one time and in one place. This point of view finds noteworthy analogies in other authors (such as Savigny, Volney and Niebuhr) who were trained as philologists roughly in the same period. Beyond Leopardi's concept of history it is possible to discover a "philological'' epistemic model that challenges the universality of classical physics, and that at the same time refuses the linear conception of coeval positivist and idealistic philosophies of history. Chapter 3 Two Emblems of the Renaissance Leopardi's canzone 'Ad Angelo Mai' provides a highly condensed overview of the early stage of Leopardi's interpretation of the Renaissance. Written in the context of Leopardi's attempt to enter the ranks of the papal bureaucracy, this poem reveals Leopardi's intellectual ambivalence: here the Renaissance is represented through the two poetic emblems of Columbus and Ariosto. The emblem of Columbus describes the Renaissance as the culminating point of the process of world measurement that erases all differences, reducing the entire world to quantity under the sovereignty of metaphysical reason. In the emblem of Ariosto, conversely, the Renaissance appears as the age of the return of imaginative poetry, which had disappeared from the world after the end of Antiquity. Chapter 4 A Map of the Renaissance: Time, Space and Language From the scattered references in the Zibaldone, it appears that Leopardi considered the creation of vernacular literatures as the fundamental event that distinguished the civilization of the Middle Ages from the modern one. While the Middle Ages were characterized by the universality of Latin, the new age tended to express individuality and therefore created a variety of national languages. Leopardi considers the existence of classical works of literature of the greatest importance, because language cannot expand without literature, whose authority establishes the linguistic and epistemic terrain on which civilization can develop. For this reason Leopardi is interested in following the process of creation of vernacular literatures all across Europe, from Portugal to Russia. He devotes special attention to Italy, where the process first started (Dante) and Greece, which according to Leopardi did not have a Renaissance because Greek literature never really died until the fall of the Eastern Empire (Plethon). Chapter 5 Encyclopedia Leopardi's mature philosophical meditation (1820-1826) reduces the importance of the conflict between imagination and reason, framing it in the context of a wider conflict between life and matter. Reason and imagination are now seen by Leopardi as two different expressions of the same fundamental attitude, which Leopardi thinks of in terms of “conformability”. From this new perspective, Leopardi gives a new interpretation of the figure of Columbus, in the homonymous dialogue of the Operette Morali. The importance of Columbus's travel is now seen in the possibility of the return beyond the conclusion of world measurement. In the same period, tellingly, in several passages of the Zibaldone Leopardi reflects on the importance of the encyclopedic ideal, adducing examples from Antiquity. Reconsidering his former point of view, Leopardi now thinks of the encyclopedia as a means to enhance imagination. Chapter 6 Metaphysics In the same period Leopardi stopped writing poetry for seven years and devoted himself to outlining a philosophical theory that he refers to as "metaphysics". This metaphysics, as I argue, can be understood in the context of Leopardi’s attempt to bring the process of world measurement to a conclusion. In this chapter several fundamental concepts of Leopardi's metaphysics are presented in their theoretical connection, following the systematic order of metaphysics that Leopardi studied in his youth. Leopardi makes use of this order for deconstructing the Leibnitian-Wolffian metaphysics of perfection, by substituting the concept of perfection with that of conformability. “Conformability" for Leopardi is an intensive quantity that measures the reciprocal influence between life and material existence, and is both the essence (definition) of life and the relationship between life and existence. This relationship is defined by Leopardi as a contradiction, since life depends on existence, but at the same time it is limited by existence, to the point that it can never reach its own end. Leopardi calls this thesis of the opposition between life and existence the “conclusion of metaphysics”. Chapter 7 The return In the last chapter of my dissertation I tackle the question of Leopardi’s return to poetry after the conclusion of his philosophical research. The finiteness of metaphysics, due to its quantitative character, allows Leopardi to bring it to a conclusion. Such a conclusion has an extremely nihilistic character, and a question arises regarding the coherence between Leopardi’s nihilism and the fact that he returned to poetry and continued writing poetry until his death. While scholarly interpretations of Leopardi usually consider Leopardi’s poetry as a paradoxical reaction to his philosophy, I try to bring to light the element of continuity between the two. Through the philosophic-poetic figures of Stoicism and Neoplatonism, Leopardi gradually articulates an ethical position which refuses every metaphysical conception of value but at the same time transcends the limits of a utilitarian point of view. This makes a sense of community and the re-foundation of political discourse possible. Such an ethical position is connected to the elaboration of the aesthetic concept of “grace”, which Leopardi understands as the poetical re-embracement of truth. Leopardi’s aesthetics of grace, together with the new ethical position connected with it, brought him to return to poetry in 1828 with a poem titled “The Renaissance”.
Notes:: Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 2021

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Karp, Morris, "Leopardi and the Symbol of the Renaissance: Poetry beyond the Measurement of the World" (2021). Italian Studies Theses and Dissertations. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:u7m7t5d3/

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Italian Studies Theses and Dissertations

Theses and Dissertations for the Italian Studies department.
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