Leopardi beyond nihilism and materialism

Abstract

A careful and objective reinterpretation of Giacomo Leopardi’s poetic production, inspired by the most recent critical orientations, reveals an unprecedented vision of the most important Italian poet of the nineteenth century. As an author with a profound and extraordinary sensitivity, he not only did not have a “materialistic” view of existence but was not even a “nihilist” in the sense of total resetting of human life to the nihil. On the contrary, as evidenced by a meticulous analysis applied to the thoughts of Zibaldone, he carried on his life through a complex and tormented religiousness.