Poetry Codex

Italian

Giacomo Leopardi

1798–1837

Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837) was born in Recanati, in the Papal States, and educated in his father's great library, where he mastered the classical languages and ruined his health by study. He is regarded as the greatest Italian lyric poet of the nineteenth century, and a profound pessimist whose thought is also preserved in his prose Operette morali and the Zibaldone.

His Canti move from patriotic odes on Italy's fallen glory to the brief, intense idylls such as “The Infinite” and “To Silvia”, and finally to the late, stoic “The Genista”. He died in Naples in 1837, aged thirty-eight. The selection here is Francis Henry Cliffe's English verse translation of 1893.

Poems (64)

  1. To Italy
  2. On the Monument of Dante About to Be Erected in Florence
  3. To Angelo Mai, on His Discovering the Books of Cicero on the Republic
  4. On the Marriage of His Sister Paolina
  5. The Soliloquy of Brutus
  6. To Spring; or, The Fables of Antiquity
  7. Hymn to the Patriarchs
  8. The Last Song of Sappho
  9. The First Love
  10. The Lonely Bird
  11. The Infinite
  12. The Holiday Night
  13. To the Moon
  14. Solitude
  15. To His Love
  16. The Revival
  17. To Silvia
  18. The Memories
  19. The Nocturnal Song of a Nomadic Shepherd in Asia
  20. The Ruling Thought
  21. Love and Death
  22. To Himself
  23. Aspasia
  24. On an Ancient Sepulchral Basso Rilievo Representing a Maiden Taking Leave of Her Friends
  25. The Setting of the Moon
  26. The Genista, or The Flower of the Desert
  27. To Italy
  28. On Dante's Monument
  29. To Angelo Mai
  30. To His Sister Paolina
  31. To a Victor in the Game of Pallone
  32. The Younger Brutus
  33. To the Spring
  34. Hymn to the Patriarchs
  35. The Last Song of Sappho
  36. First Love
  37. The Lonely Sparrow
  38. The Infinite
  39. The Evening of the Holiday
  40. To the Moon
  41. The Dream
  42. The Lonely Life
  43. Consalvo
  44. To the Beloved
  45. To Count Carlo Pepoli
  46. The Resurrection
  47. To Sylvia
  48. Recollections
  49. Night-Song of a Wandering Shepherd in Asia
  50. Calm after Storm
  51. The Village Saturday-Night
  52. The Ruling Thought
  53. Love and Death
  54. To Himself
  55. Aspasia
  56. On an Old Sepulchral Bas-Relief
  57. On the Portrait of a Beautiful Woman
  58. Palinodia
  59. The Setting of the Moon
  60. The Ginestra
  61. Imitation
  62. Scherzo
  63. Fragment I
  64. Fragment II

See Giacomo Leopardi in the full archive →