La dissimulazione (del sentimento) nelle Operette morali

Abstract

Leopardi identifies dissimulation as a compositional, and an aesthetic principle. This is characterised as a philosophical and structural dissimulation, as well as one of mimesis. This approach involves a process of shuffling cards, avoiding conclusions, opening up possible worlds and eluding certainties and apparent logic. The Operette morali are, in fact, designed and composed under the banner of destabilisation with respect to expectation. Furthermore, the declared renunciation of dissimulation of existential unhappiness coincides in many cases with the dissimulation of sentiment, particularly love and friendship, which lends the text a surprising modernity. The work is entirely set in a disorienting, at times dystopian perspective.