Canti - Hardcover

Leopardi, Giacomo

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0719002907 ISBN 13: 9780719002908

Publisher: Manchester University Press, 1967

Synopsis

'So my mind sinks in this immensity:
and foundering is sweet in such a sea'

Revisited and reorganized over his lifetime, this extraordinary work was described by Leopardi as a 'reliquary' for his ideas, feelings and deepest preoccupations. It encompasses drastic shifts in tone and material, and includes early personal elegies and idylls; radical public poems on history and politics; philosophical satires; his great, dark, despairing odes such as 'To Silvia'; and later masterworks such as 'The Setting of the Moon', written not long before Leopardi's death. Infused with classical allusion and nostalgia, yet disarmingly modern in their spare, meditative style and their sense of alienation and scepticism, the Canti influenced the following two centuries of Western lyric poetry, and inspired thinkers and writers from Schopenhauer and Nietzsche to Beckett and Lowell.

Jonathan Galassi's direct new translation sensitively responds to the musicality of the Canti, while his introduction discusses the paradoxes of Leopardi's life and work.

About this title

From the Publisher:

New translation of one of Italian Literature's most loved poets. Translated by prize-winning translator J.G. Nichols. Dual-language edition, ideal for students of Italian literature and poetry lovers. Thoroughly edited and extensively annotated.

From the Back Cover:

'So my mind sinks in this immensity:
and foundering is sweet in such a sea'

Leopardi's Canti is one of the most influential poetic works of the nineteenth century, and a landmark achievement in Italian verse. Revisited and reorganized over his lifetime, this extraordinary work was described by Leopardi as a 'reliquary' for his ideas, feelings and deepest preoccupations. It encompasses drastic shifts in tone and material, and includes early personal elegies and idylls; radical public poems on history and politics; philosophical satires; his great, dark, despairing odes such as 'To Silvia'; and later masterworks such as 'The Setting of the Moon', written not long before Leopardi's death. Infused with classical allusion and nostalgia, yet disarmingly modern in their spare, meditative style and their sense of alienation and scepticism, the Canti influenced the following two centuries of Western lyric poetry, and inspired thinkers and writers from Schopenhauer and Nietzsche to Beckett and Lowell.

Jonathan Galassi's direct new translation sensitively responds to the musicality of the Canti, while his introduction discusses the paradoxes of Leopardi's life and work. This edition also contains a chronology, a note on the Canti's structure, notes and a bibliography.

Translated with notes and an introduction by Jonathan Galassi

About this edition

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Publication date: 1967
• ISBN 10: 0719002907
• ISBN 13: 9780719002908
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 216
• Editor: Whitfield John Humphreys