Lyrical. Pessimism. One of the most radical and challenging thinkers of the 19th century. Although he lived in a secluded town in the ultra-conservative Papal States, he came in touch with the main thoughts of the Enlightenment, and, by his own literary evolution, created a remarkable and renowned poetic work, related to the Romantic era.

Giacomo Leopardi was born into a noble Italian family on 2nd June 1798. He was educated privately with tutors and showed remarkable talent from an early age. By the age of sixteen he had mastered Greek and Latin, amongst other languages and had begun using this knowledge to translate many classical works.

Leopardi also wrote his own original plays and poems. Leopardi used his early poems, such as All` Italia and Sul Monumento di Dante, to express his love for Italy and his desire for her to return to greatness.

Sadly, during his early creative period, liberal writer Leopardi was struck down with cerebrospinal - a condition that afflicted him all his life. He also had problems with his sight and he eventually became blind in one eye. Therefore, because of these physical deformatives, he found it difficult to associate with women. His romantic frustrations are recalled in a number of his poems, including A Silvia (1828).

Feeling imprisoned by his home time of Recanti, Leoparidi went on to take up up residence in a number of cities. In 1822 he moved to Rome, where he lived mosty among Germans and puboished his collection Canzoni in 1824. From 1825 he lived in Bologna and accepted an offer to edit Cicero`s works. In 1830 he took up residence in Florence, later settling in Naples. 

He died of edema on 14th June 1837. A friend of his later commented: "His whole life was not a career like that of most men; it was truly a precipitate course towards death." For, despite being remembered as a representative of romanticism, Leopardi`s continual ill health and lack of self esteem meant that he was never actually intimate with a woman. In the end Leopardi saw suffering as the "essence and natural order of nature."

Bibliography:

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