Poetry Reading Group Redux- Nominations

[stlukesguild]

Here is the chance to nominate a couple of poets or poetry compilations for consideration for more in-depth reading by those interested. Limit your nominations to 3 works/collections. Try to chose something you have not read but have wanted to read (or something you haven't read in great depth). Consider how difficult the work nominated will be to come by by the group as a whole. In nominating a collection such as the collected works of Yeats we can always choose a few poems to focus upon. You may wish to add a few details about the poets you nominate. After a given period of time (shall we say 1 week... less?) we'll hold a vote in which we each choose our top 3 choices eliminating all but a few works. The selection will come from a final round of voting.

My first 2 nominations are:

Michael Drayton- Nimphidia, the Court of Faery

Thomas Lovell Beddoes- Selected Poems

Both authors are available on the internet. I read part of the Drayton poem some years ago and nothing by Beddoes.

[JBI]

I'll nominate this one: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Songs-Ancient-Chinese-Classic/dp/0802134777/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266298170&sr=8-4

And this one: http://www.amazon.com/Butterflys-Burden-Arabic-Mahmoud-Darwish/dp/1556592418/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266298388&sr=1-1

And as a third a preferably Elizabethan or nevertheless early translation of Petrarch's Canzoniere.

[mayneverhave]

I'll nominate two volumes of poetry I have recently (yesterday!) purchased but have not yet read:

- Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair: Pablo Neruda
- Les Fleurs du mal: Charles Baudelaire

Hardly unheard of selections (with two threads already floating around on French and Spanish poetry), but both are relatively modern and famous.

Would also not mind Il Canzoniere.

[Paulclem]

I'd like to nominate Lorca:

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/federico_garcia_lorca/poems

and Robert Graves:

http://www.poemhunter.com/robert-graves/

I'd be happy to do any of the above though.

[quasimodo1]

Three collections: Jackstraws: Poems by Charles Simic / Search Party: Collected Poems by William Matthews / Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth: Poems by Adrienne Rich

[mal4mac]

Timon of Athens - Shakespeare

Purgatory - Dante

Goethe - Faust (part 1)

[stlukesguild]

For my 3rd choice I'll nominate the selected poems of the Russian, Marina Svetaeva.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Giacomo Leopardi
Theophile Gautier

I’ll forward these two. Both of them have been on my “to do” list for too long and should be easily available on the internet for all. I don’t have any particular collections or poems in mind, but if one of them did come out I’m sure that we could agree upon a few choice pieces. Originally, I wanted to forward some Eastern poets, something a little further afield, something Chinese, Persian/Arabic but to be honest I wouldn’t know where to even start here properly. However, I would be happy to read whatever is suggested though I think easy, immediate access – as in the internet – has to be a factor so all can get to the material easily.

(I can certainly sympathise with Mac’s suggestion of Purgatory but I think length is an issue for most people too, unless extracts were involved. Maybe another thread, another time, would be a good idea for that one – I know I’d certainly like to go over Dante sometime in a little more depth anyway.)

[Paulclem]

I'll nominate this one: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Songs-Ancient-Chinese-Classic/dp/0802134777/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266298170&sr=8-4

And this one: http://www.amazon.com/Butterflys-Burden-Arabic-Mahmoud-Darwish/dp/1556592418/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266298388&sr=1-1

And as a third a preferably Elizabethan or nevertheless early translation of Petrarch's Canzoniere.

Hi JBI
Do you mind me asking where your interest in Classical Chinese poetry comes from?

[JBI]

Hi JBI
Do you mind me asking where your interest in Classical Chinese poetry comes from?

I study Chinese, but beyond that, once you begin to understand it, you realize it is a very interesting area of literature, certainly as if not more interesting than any other number of traditions that get too much discussion time here.

Really though, you have to read it to understand, and that translation I recommended seems to be very accessible for English, especially since it is early 詩 poetry, and therefore more simple folk poetry than elaborate literati poetry.

[Paulclem]

I study Chinese, but beyond that, once you begin to understand it, you realize it is a very interesting area of literature, certainly as if not more interesting than any other number of traditions that get too much discussion time here.

Really though, you have to read it to understand, and that translation I recommended seems to be very accessible for English, especially since it is early 詩 poetry, and therefore more simple folk poetry than elaborate literati poetry.

That's interesting. My wife tried Chinese at her uni, but didn't get on with it. She's good at German and French. My kids both like Japanese, and the lad has applied to study it at Uni. I'm afraid I'm virtually monolingual though.

Chinese could be a good language to acquire with the opportunities China offers these days. My work colleague has a Chinese wife, and when they were visiting relatives in the summer they were both offered work in language schools. Lucrative too.

[LeavesOfGrass]

1. Poetry of Robert Browning; any of his poems may do. I've been meaning to study him for a while.

2. Any of Percy B. Shelley's work. I've not delved into him either, but really wish to.

[stlukesguild]

Oooh! A couple of interesting suggestions. I love Gautier's tales, but haven't read many of his poems... yet I recently found an on-line translation of his Enamels and Cameos. Robert Browning is also an interesting suggestion... someone I was just thinking that I have barely read myself... although he may certainly not be as unknown to others.

[stlukesguild]

JBI... what have you come across among Elizabethan of other early translations of Petrarch? I know of the Wyatt and Chaucer translation of a few pieces... but little else.

[mortalterror]

Neruda, Baudelaire, and Leopardi all sound great to me.

[JBI]

JBI... what have you come across among Elizabethan of other early translations of Petrarch? I know of the Wyatt and Chaucer translation of a few pieces... but little else.

There is of course the Earl of Surrey who was a friend of Wyatt, and I think there were others, but I cannot dig up any at this second.

[Virgil]

Are we starting this up again? How about Rilke or Robert Lowell?

[OrphanPip]

Virgil's suggestion of Robert Lowell makes me think that I'd like to read more from Amy Lowell. However, there have been a significant amount of good suggestions so far that any more hardly seems necessary.

[JBI]

When should we take this to votes - I think we aught, for the first vote, to cut down all nominations by three, so for instance, 10 people nominated 3 each, then just list your top ten, and the bottom 20 will be cut or something, but we'll have it so we cannot vote for our own nominations, to make things more interesting.

[OrphanPip]

Well here are the suggestions up to now, do we want to start the picking process from this?


Michael Drayton- Nimphidia, the Court of Faery

Thomas Lovell Beddoes- Selected Poems

Mahmoud Darwish – The Butterfly's Burden, trans. Fady Joudah

The Book of Songs – Translated by Arthur Waley

Pablo Neruda - Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Charles Baudelaire - Les Fleurs du mal

Petrarch – Canzoniere (unspecified translation)

Lorca

Robert Graves

Charles Simic - Jackstraws: Poems

William Matthews - Search Party: Collected Poems

Adrienne Rich - Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth: Poems

Shakespeare - Timon of Athens

Dante - Purgatory

Goethe - Faust (part 1)

Marina Sveteeva – Selected works

Giacomo Leopardi

Theophile Gautier

Robert Browning

Percy Shelley

Robert Lowell

Rainer Maria Rilke

Amy Lowell

[JBI]

Can we knock Shakespeare, Dante and Goethe off of there - those aren't the right genre...

Besides the list seems to defy the purpose of such a discussion to an extent - I mean, it seems like most people just nominated poets they have already read, or who they could easily make a thread for on their respective subforum.

[OrphanPip]

Can we knock Shakespeare, Dante and Goethe off of there - those aren't the right genre...

Besides the list seems to defy the purpose of such a discussion to an extent - I mean, it seems like most people just nominated poets they have already read, or who they could easily make a thread for on their respective subforum.

Ok, so we remove Shakespeare, Dante, and Goethe since we're looking for short poems.

Shelley and Browning because they have subforms. However, Stlukes seems interested in reading Browning, and I don't think I'm adverse to reading him either.

I would be up for removing Baudelaire from the list because I've read Les Fleurs du Mal several times before, and from the French symbolism thread, so have many other people in this thread.

I'm personally leaning towards the non-English poets, despite my nomination of Amy Lowell. It just bothered me slightly that the only poem I've read from her is "Patterns" and she is in the public domain, so her poems should be easy to obtain.

Edit: Neruda may be a bit too popular for the purpose of the reading group as well.

[mayneverhave]

I would be up for removing Baudelaire from the list because I've read Les Fleurs du Mal several times before, and from the French symbolism thread, so have many other people in this thread.

I'm personally leaning towards the non-English poets, despite my nomination of Amy Lowell. It just bothered me slightly that the only poem I've read from her is "Patterns" and she is in the public domain, so her poems should be easy to obtain.

Edit: Neruda may be a bit too popular for the purpose of the reading group as well.

I must disagree with your assessments here, along with your reasoning. It seems rather irrelevant as to whether you have over-read Baudelaire or not, as these are nominations, and your personal history means nothing to my nomination. If you do not want to read Baudelaire, do not vote for Baudelaire. To suggest that we completely remove him from the list because you have read him before is absurd.

As for Neruda's popularity - we might remove any number of the poets on the list for being popular - and if you mean popular as in a pejorative sense, then I simply must disagree.

[OrphanPip]

No, I have nothing against Neruda. If you look to the thread where we discussed establishing this reading group. The purpose was to look at less commonly read poets in more detail, in an attempt to avoid discussing poets that most people already have long established opinions of. Thus, from the mere existence of several threads in the poetry subform discussing Baudelaire and French Symbolism in general, he doesn't seem to match that bill.

Also, I wasn't implying that my opinion should be the be all end all of what gets included for a vote. I won't be voting for Baudelaire if he's included, but limiting the list to 10 will make voting much easier than a list of 20 some.

[mortalterror]

If you look to the thread where we discussed establishing this reading group. The purpose was to look at less commonly read poets in more detail, in an attempt to avoid discussing poets that most people already have long established opinions of.
Really, because I believe the context of my posts on that thread were the opposite. And I've already seconded Neruda, Baudelaire, and Leopardi, as far as that goes.

[OrphanPip]

Really, because I believe the context of my posts on that thread were the opposite. And I've already seconded Neruda, Baudelaire, and Leopardi, as far as that goes.

Fine, whatever, we can all read stuff that already has a slew of threads dedicated to it.:rolleyes5:

[The Comedian]

I'd be interested in participating in this group as well. I'll leave the suggestions to you all, however.

[JBI]

I'd be interested in participating in this group as well. I'll leave the suggestions to you all, however.

Feel free to post.

[mayneverhave]

Fine, whatever, we can all read stuff that already has a slew of threads dedicated to it.:rolleyes5:

I didn't mean to be catty. I was just a little annoyed that the two poets you recommended removing from the nomination list were the very two I nominated.

That's the nature of nominations. If more people feel like you do about Neruda or Baudelaire being overread, then those same people won't vote for reading Neruda or Baudelaire, thereby fixing the problem. If no one voted for my nominations that would be fine, but completely removing them from even the nominations is not cool.

I mean, I've done multiple close readings of Rilke in the last couple months, but I wouldn't suggest removing him from a nomination list - I just wouldn't vote for him.

[OrphanPip]

I don't have a problem with leaving them up for vote, but it's a big list to choose from, especially if we leave it open to more nominations.

[Paulclem]

When should we take this to votes - I think we aught, for the first vote, to cut down all nominations by three, so for instance, 10 people nominated 3 each, then just list your top ten, and the bottom 20 will be cut or something, but we'll have it so we cannot vote for our own nominations, to make things more interesting.

Here are my 10 nominations:

Marina Svetlana
Book of Songs - Ancient chinese Poetry
Baudelaire
Charles Simic
Leopardi
Neruda
Thomas Lovell Beddoes
Browning
Adrienne Rich
Gautier

They all look very intersting. This should be great.

[Virgil]

Hey this is great. I can't wait until we start one.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I think this democracy is taking a little bit too long; can’t we get a good old despotism or monarchy in instead?

I’ve gone through what is been selected, and apart from my choices, obviously, I’ve gone with the following, though it seems a bit odd picking ten when there aren’t that many choices available, maybe we should have chosen less? Anyway these are mine:

1 Pablo Neruda - Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (solidly number one)
2 The Book of Songs: The Ancient Chinese Classic of Poetry
3 Charles Baudelaire - Les Fleurs du mal
4 Petrarch – Canzoniere
5 Mahmoud Darwish – The Butterfly's Burden
6 Thomas Lovell Beddoes
7 Lorca
8 Rainer Maria Rilke
9 Michael Drayton
10 Robert Browning

I must say though that it depends on the availability of the poems. For me if they are not available online then it is not going to work because it is going to take too long to order things in, and if such is the case from any of the above then I withdraw my vote for them on this basis. More than anything though I just want to get down to the literature as soon as possible. Incidentally, I've picked up the Neruda today from the library so I'm going to read that tomorrow regardless anyway, I was quite interested in him myself and almost nominated him too.

[stlukesguild]

So how are we scoring this vote? 10 points for a poet getting a number 1 vote. 9 for a number 2, etc? Then a final vote on the three finalists with the most votes?

1. Theophile Gautier
2. Robert Browning
3. Giacomo Leopardi
4. Charles Simic - Jackstraws: Poems
5. Federico Garcia-Lorca- Selected Poems
6. Robert Graves
7. Pablo Neruda - Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
8. Charles Baudelaire - Les Fleurs du mal
9. Rainer Maria Rilke
10. Petrarch – Canzoniere (unspecified translation)

Seriously... there was not a whole lot that I haven't read in part. Gautier seemed a clear first choice for me (seeing we've excluded voting for our own nominations). Browning is someone major I must admit to not having read much of... and I'd certainly like a reason to purchase a good Leopardi translation. Simic, Neruda, Lorca, Neruda, Baudelaire, and Rilke are like old friends... but I wouldn't be adverse to reading them. I just thought I might aim toward someone I'm not so familiar with.

[Virgil]

So i have to pick ten poets for the nomination? Ok.

Rilke
Robert Lowell
Stanly Kunitz
John Ashberry
Walt Whitman
Pablo Neruda
Lorca
Leopardi
Keats
William Matthews

[JBI]

I think we'll have a running vote, and choose 3 or something, so we'll keep the top 10 scorers now, and then go from there.

[mal4mac]

Can we knock Shakespeare, Dante and Goethe off of there - those aren't the right genre...

Besides the list seems to defy the purpose of such a discussion to an extent - I mean, it seems like most people just nominated poets they have already read, or who they could easily make a thread for on their respective subforum.

stlukesguild did not specify genre or length. If you want to start your own 'short poetry for a specific genre' thread then go ahead.

I nominated them because I have either just started reading them, or will in the near future.

[JBI]

stlukesguild did not specify genre or length. If you want to start your own 'short poetry for a specific genre' thread then go ahead.

I nominated them because I have either just started reading them, or will in the near future.

Okay... no need to be rude, but have you read the first post? Poetry not Drama, that knocks off two, and then if you read closely it is trying to deal with something that can be broken into shorter single poems for discussion, so unless you plan on digging out Canti from La Comedia...

There is no need to debase me, as you would note, unlike many of the voters here, and posters, I actually have participated in all our former book clubs, and the whole idea itself originated from just a few of us, who have been participating since the beginning, whereas others have been nominating and not reading, or merely nominating things they have no intention of reading, or are unable to read because a given work is too rare, or too long to be read and broken down easily.

As it is though, nobody has yet voted for them, and by general rule, you cannot, so perhaps this point was frivolous. Seriously though, there is no need for rude remarks - some people just don't understand, I guess, that "poetry reading group" implies poetry and not drama.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I think also it’s because this thread is a carry-over from Paul's thread where we discussed that length was an issue for many people, due to other commitments and reading loads.

Personally, I would certainly be happy to contribute to a separate Dante thread in particular, at a later stage, though at the moment I couldn't fully commit to a full re-reading of this text because it would be too much for me at present.

[mayneverhave]

My 10 selections excluding my own nominations:

- Leopardi
- Shi Jing (Book of Songs)
- Petrarch
- Browning
- Lorca
- Rilke
- Shelley
- Gautier
- Graves
- Robert Lowell

The only problem we run into is selecting from each author. Although I suggested books (Twenty Love Poems and The Flowers of Evil), most of you did not. Among the poets in the list with whom I'm familiar, we'll have to choose selections from Browning, Lorca, Rilke, Shelley, and Leopardi (probably The Canti).

However, from the actual books, we may have to skim down as well. Leopardi's Canti might work, but the Canzoniere is long (366 lyrics?), as is The Book of Songs. Among my nominations, The Flowers of Evil is long, and might have to be edited for this purposes of this group.

For Rilke - perhaps The Duino Elegies and/or Sonnets to Orpheus plus a selection from his shorter lyrics?

The rest of the poets, I leave in your hands.

[OrphanPip]

Since I proposed Amy Lowell, I guess I'll suggest Men, Women and Ghost from 1916, it is in the public domain and available on Project Guttenberg. The collection contains what is probably her most famous poem, "Patterns" as well as some early experimental poetry in free verse, and what Lowell called "polyphonic prose". I don't think she has a chance of being chosen though. haha

[JBI]

Since I proposed Amy Lowell, I guess I'll suggest Men, Women and Ghost from 1916, it is in the public domain and available on Project Guttenberg. The collection contains what is probably her most famous poem, "Patterns" as well as some early experimental poetry in free verse, and what Lowell called "polyphonic prose". I don't think she has a chance of being chosen though. haha

To be honest, I read her "Selected Poems" and wasn't very impressed, so I don't think I'll be reading much more of her, unless she wins. Though, I still get a giggle at the fact Pound dubbed her "hippopoetess" because of her obesity, offensive, but hey, it's still kind of funny.

[OrphanPip]

To be honest, I read her "Selected Poems" and wasn't very impressed, so I don't think I'll be reading much more of her, unless she wins. Though, I still get a giggle at the fact Pound dubbed her "hippopoetess" because of her obesity, offensive, but hey, it's still kind of funny.

I'm not too attached to the nomination anyway. Pound also derided her form of Imagism as "Amygism".

[mortalterror]

So far, there have been almost no names put forward which I would not enjoy reading.

1.Neruda
2.Baudelaire
3.Leopardi
4.Petrarch
5.Rilke
6.Keats
7.Browning
8.Lorca
9.Shi Jing
10.Graves

I could live with any of those. As far as them being known quantities and represented elsewhere on these boards, I just have to wonder if they've already been done as well as they could be. Have they received the full measure of scrutiny which Roethke or Pasternak enjoyed when the Poetry Club reviewed them? While I have read all of the authors I mention above, I don't feel like I've given them the kind of deep reading they deserve, and that's what I'd like to do this time. As far as Baudelaire goes, it's been a decade since I read Flowers of Evil, and I'd gladly accept the opportunity to reacquaint myself with his work.

[Lynne50]

I guess I'll add my two cents since I've been reading more poetry than anything else lately. How about some Russian poets, Akhmatova, Pasternak or maybe Czech Jiri Orten?
Also Louise Gluck, has a new collection out. Haven't read any of them.

[stlukesguild]

Lynn... we are already past the nomination stage and in the first round of voting on the nominated poets/works. There is one Russian poet/poetess nominated: Marina Tsvetaeva. In our last incarnation the poetry group discussed Boris Pasternak's works from My Sister- Life.

[LitNetIsGreat]

OK, so voted so far:

Paulclem, Neely, Stlukesguild, Vigil, Mayneverhave, Mortalterror.

Yet to vote:

Ophan Pip, JBI, The Comedian, Mal4Mac, Lynne50 + any other?

[Paulclem]

OK, so voted so far:

Paulclem, Neely, Stlukesguild, Vigil, Mayneverhave, Mortalterror.

Yet to vote:

Ophan Pip, JBI, The Comedian, Mal4Mac, Lynne50 + any other?

I'm looking forward to starting. It should be very informative.

[JBI]

Lorca
Leopardi
Graves
Gautier
Simic
Matthews
Drayton
Gautier
Browning
Keats


We probably should have cut down to 5-7. Note, I didn't choose Baudelaire, and was reluctant with Leopardi (and Gautier for that matter) since I probably won't be reading either of these poets in translation most likely, and therefore don't like getting into the mess of over-interpreting over what is written in somebody else's version.

[LitNetIsGreat]

You have put Gautier in there twice.

We probably should have cut down to 5-7. Note, I didn't choose Baudelaire, and was reluctant with Leopardi (and Gautier for that matter) since I probably won't be reading either of these poets in translation most likely, and therefore don't like getting into the mess of over-interpreting over what is written in somebody else's version.

I don’t necessarily see this as a huge problem, if we are sensible about it. I think that we just have to try and accept the difference in the various translations Vs the original and all the potential issues which arise from it, and not get too heated about it. I would rather face such issues, and inevitably get a few details a little wrong, then have to necessarily limit the discussion to the English language. I'm personally more than happy for original readings (and contexts) to help shed light on translations.

[Virgil]

We probably should have cut down to 5-7. Note, I didn't choose Baudelaire, and was reluctant with Leopardi (and Gautier for that matter) since I probably won't be reading either of these poets in translation most likely, and therefore don't like getting into the mess of over-interpreting over what is written in somebody else's version.
Didn't we have a formula? Something like Numbers 1-3 3 points, 4-6 2 points, and 6-10 one point each?

[Paulclem]

So far the ones with 5 votes are:

Leopardi
Lorca
Browning

4 votes:

Book of songs
Baudelaire
Neruda
Gautier
Petrarch
Rilke
Graves

[LitNetIsGreat]

Stlukes suggested 1st 10 points, 2nd 9 points etc, and I've began to tot them up this way, but I don't suppose it matters as long as we stick to one system.

[Paulclem]

Stlukes suggested 1st 10 points, 2nd 9 points etc, and I've began to tot them up this way, but I don't suppose it matters as long as we stick to one system.

Go with yours Neely - we'd end up with them ranked that way. :thumbs_up

[quasimodo1]

1. Theophile Gautier
2. Robert Browning
3. Giacomo Leopardi
4. Charles Simic - Jackstraws: Poems
5. Federico Garcia-Lorca- Selected Poems
6. Robert Graves
7. Pablo Neruda - Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
8. Charles Baudelaire - Les Fleurs du mal
9. Rainer Maria Rilke
10. Petrarch – Canzoniere (unspecified translation)

[JBI]

So far the ones with 5 votes are:

Leopardi
Lorca
Browning

4 votes:

Book of songs
Baudelaire
Neruda
Gautier
Petrarch
Rilke
Graves

I think we aught to go with this system, and then just knock off half the nominations, then do a select 3 running ballot where one can vote for their own nominations - as I don't know about you guys, but I didn't put mine in any which order.

[Virgil]

Stlukes suggested 1st 10 points, 2nd 9 points etc, and I've began to tot them up this way, but I don't suppose it matters as long as we stick to one system.


Go with yours Neely - we'd end up with them ranked that way. :thumbs_up

Yes, I'm ok with that. That's actually better.

[stlukesguild]

I did put mine in a particular order... ranking first choice on down.

[stlukesguild]

Can we set a deadline and get the works tallied so we can move on to the final vote... top 5?

[JBI]

Ok, how does tomorrow at 6EST we close the poll, and tally things?

[stlukesguild]

AM or PM? Either works fine for me as I've already voted.

[JBI]

AM or PM? Either works fine for me as I've already voted.

PM, AM is too soon.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Yes sounds fine to me, time and top 5.

(JBI, you have put Gautier in twice.)

[mal4mac]

... Poetry not Drama...

As Dante and Shakespeare are definitely poets, I'll stick with them. The first post doesn't exclude drama, unless it's implicit, but, if so, I'm not "in" enough to "get" that.

[LitNetIsGreat]

As Dante and Shakespeare are definitely poets, I'll stick with them. The first post doesn't exclude drama, unless it's implicit, but, if so, I'm not "in" enough to "get" that.

I think you miss one of the main points though Mac which is time. I think it was more or less a unanimous decision upon this point when it was discussed here as was the want to focus on a poem or group of poems:
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50841

As I say, I would be very happy to dig into Dante in particular myself, though I don’t think this is perhaps the best time and place for it personally. I can’t re-read the whole of Purgatory and digest my thoughts on this with everything else I am reading at the minute, but I can happily manage a few poems. Maybe a few extracts of this would work, but then you would be taking it out of the context of the drama which I don't think would be that helpful to the overall picture of it.

[JBI]

Yes sounds fine to me, time and top 5.

(JBI, you have put Gautier in twice.)

If you are scoring, change the bottom one to Robert Lowell then.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Right OK.

[mayneverhave]

As Dante and Shakespeare are definitely poets, I'll stick with them. The first post doesn't exclude drama, unless it's implicit, but, if so, I'm not "in" enough to "get" that.

Shakespeare and Goethe wrote in verse (at least most of the time), but I wouldn't consider Faust or any of Shakespeare's plays poetry. As for Dante, this really doesn't seem like the place for it. I don't need to tell you how isolating one section of the Comedy takes away from the whole; certainly taking individual cantos would as well.

I don't know. I just assumed we would be discussing lyrical poetry.

[stlukesguild]

OK Neely... we're awaiting the results.:crazy:

[LitNetIsGreat]

OK, I've added them up but the results are at home, I'll post them later at around 6pm my time, sorry.

[LitNetIsGreat]

OK, this is the leaderboard according to my calculations:

1 Leopardi – Unspecified 51
2 Pablo Neruda - Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair 38
3 Browning – Unspecified 35
4 Federico Garcia-Lorca - Selected Poems 33
5 Gautier – Unspecified 31

6 Baudelaire – Les Fleurs du Mal 30
7 Shi Jing - Book of Songs - Ancient Chinese Poetry 29
8 Rainer Maria Rilke - Unspecified 28
9 Simic – Unspecified 27
10 Petrarch – Canzoniere 24

What do we do now, re-vote the top 5 to pick a final choice?

[Paulclem]

OK, this is the leaderboard according to my calculations:

1 Leopardi – Unspecified 51
2 Pablo Neruda - Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair 38
3 Browning – Unspecified 35
4 Federico Garcia-Lorca - Selected Poems 33
5 Gautier – Unspecified 31

6 Baudelaire – Les Fleurs du Mal 30
7 Shi Jing - Book of Songs - Ancient Chinese Poetry 29
8 Rainer Maria Rilke - Unspecified 28
9 Simic – Unspecified 27
10 Petrarch – Canzoniere 24

What do we do now, re-vote the top 5 to pick a final choice?

If we are doing that,here's my choice. If not, I'll re-do whatever method you decide.

The Top 5 in my order:

Lorca
Gautier
Neruda
Leopardi
Browning

As I said, if you want it done a different way, I don't mind.

[stlukesguild]

I could go with any one of these five but as it is here is my five choices in order:

1. Gautier
2. Browning
3. Leopardi
4. Garcia-Lorca
5. Neruda

[mortalterror]

Neruda
Leopardi
Browning
Lorca
Gautier

[OrphanPip]

1. Gautier
2. Leopardi
3. Browning
4. Garcia-Lorca
5. Neruda

[mayneverhave]

Neruda
Leopardi
Browning
Lorca
Gautier

This.

[JBI]

Leopardi
Lorca
Browning
Gautier
Neruda

[LitNetIsGreat]

Quite happy to read any of these really, but my order would probably be:

Leopardi
Neruda
Gautier
Browning
Lorca

[B. Laumness]

If I had to choose to discover a French poet, I’d rather read Du Bellay, Ronsard, Hugo, Vigny or Heredia, whose poetry does not seem well known by the Enghish readers. Although Baudelaire considered Gautier as his master, the works of this latter are not as modern and powerful as les Fleurs du Mal. In Émaux et Camées, which is his best collection, at least his most original, he refuses the intrusion of morality and politics in poetry and rejects the sentimental effusions of the Romantics. He tries to attain a purety in his verse, an aesthetic perfection. He often uses the metaphor of the sculptor to show how carefully and meticulously the artist endeavours to elaborate, chisel and polish his material. Some may dislike a kind of impersonality of the result and a lack of emotions.

Baudelaire relates his first meeting with him in these terms :

“ Il me demanda ensuite, avec un œil curieusement méfiant, et comme pour m’éprouver, si j’aimais à lire des dictionnaires. Il me dit cela d’ailleurs comme il dit toute chose, fort tranquillement, et du ton qu’aurait pris un autre pour s’informer si je préférais la lecture des voyages à celle des romans. Par bonheur, j’avais été pris très jeune de lexicomanie, et je vis que ma réponse me gagnait de l’estime. Ce fut justement à propos des dictionnaires qu’il ajouta « que l’écrivain qui ne savait pas tout dire, celui qu’une idée si étrange, si subtile qu’on la supposât, si imprévue, tombant comme une pierre de la lune, prenait au dépourvu et sans matériel pour lui donner corps, n’était pas un écrivain ». ”

I don’t think this interesting essay has ever been translated. I’m going to try to translate this small part despite my approximate English :

“ Then he asked me with curiously suspicious eyes, as if to test me, if I liked to read dictionaries. He said that besides as he says every thing, very quietly, in the tone which another would have taken in order to inquire whether I’d rather read travel narratives or novels. Fortunalety I had been seized by lexicomania when I was very young and I saw that my reply won his esteem. He added about the dictionaries ‘that the writer who could not tell anything, the one that an idea, strange and subtle as it might be, unforeseen and falling like a stone from the moon, caught off his guard without material to give shape to it, was not a writer’. ”

It’s curious to see that Flaubert wrote in a letter (7-27-1852) that he found Émaux et Camées pitiable, recherché and old-fashioned. – By the way his correspondance is a treasure, a must-read for anyone interested in the creation of a novel. I was disappointed the first time I read Madame Bovary, actually I had not even read it till the end, but after having perused these letters and Salammbô I highly revalued this author and understood why he may be considered as one of the most important novelists of the century.


L’ART

Oui, l'oeuvre sort plus belle
D'une forme au travail
Rebelle,
Vers, marbre, onyx, émail.

Point de contraintes fausses !
Mais que pour marcher droit
Tu chausses,
Muse, un cothurne étroit.

Fi du rhythme commode,
Comme un soulier trop grand,
Du mode
Que tout pied quitte et prend !

Statuaire, repousse
L'argile que pétrit
Le pouce
Quand flotte ailleurs l'esprit :

Lutte avec le carrare,
Avec le paros dur
Et rare,
Gardiens du contour pur ;

Emprunte à Syracuse
Son bronze où fermement
S'accuse
Le trait fier et charmant ;

D'une main délicate
Poursuis dans un filon
D'agate
Le profil d'Apollon.

Peintre, fuis l'aquarelle,
Et fixe la couleur
Trop frêle
Au four de l'émailleur.

Fais les sirènes bleues,
Tordant de cent façons
Leurs queues,
Les monstres des blasons ;

Dans son nimbe trilobe
La Vierge et son Jésus,
Le globe
Avec la croix dessus.

Tout passe. - L'art robuste
Seul a l'éternité.
Le buste
Survit à la cité.

Et la médaille austère
Que trouve un laboureur
Sous terre
Révèle un empereur.

Les dieux eux-mêmes meurent,
Mais les vers souverains
Demeurent
Plus forts que les airains.

Sculpte, lime, cisèle ;
Que ton rêve flottant
Se scelle
Dans le bloc résistant !


ART

More fair the work, more strong,
Stamped in resistance long,
Enamel, marble, song.

Poet, no shackles bear,
Yet bid thy Muse to wear
The buskin bound with care.

A fashion loose forsake,
A shoe of sloven make,
That any foot may take.

Sculptor, the clay withstand,
That yieldeth to the hand,
Though listless heart command.

Contend till thou have wrought,
Till the hard stone have caught
The beauty of thy thought.

With Paros match thy might,
And with Carrara bright,
That guard the line of light.

Borrow from Syracuse
The bronze's stubborn use,
Wherein thy form to choose.

And with a delicate grace
In the veined onyx trace
Apollo's perfect face.

Painter, put thou aside
The transient. Be thy pride
The colour furnace-tried.

Limn thou, fantastic, free
Blue sirens of the sea,
And beasts of heraldry.

Before a nimbus gold
Transcendently uphold
The Child, the Cross foretold.

Things perish. Gods have passed.
But song sublimely cast
Shall citadels outlast.

And the forgotten seal
Turned by the plowman's steel
An emperor may reveal.

For Art alone is great:
The bust survives the state,
The crown the potentate.

Carve, burnish, build thy theme,
But fix thy wavering dream
In the stern rock supreme.


I’ve just read again some pieces and I have to admit I agree with Flaubert : none is great even if a few passages are good. Du Bellay and Ronsard, who also aim to an ideal beauty, are far better : because of its contraints, the sonnet is probably a more appropriate mould to express the formal achievement, the mastery in the construction, and to convey more intensely emotions and thoughts. Baudelaire said : ‘Because the form is more constrained, the idea springs up more intensely.’

I found on Amazon books of the poets mentioned above:
- Du Bellay (http://www.amazon.com/Joachim-Bellay-Antiquities-Enrichment-Language/dp/0812239415/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267024826&sr=8-1), but it's quite expensive, otherwise there is this version of his main collection, les Regrets (http://www.amazon.com/Regrets-European-Poetry-Classics-Joachim/dp/0810119935/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267024826&sr=8-2)
- from Ronsard, it appears you have only these selected poems (http://www.amazon.com/Selected-Penguin-Classics-Pierre-Ronsard/dp/0140424245/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267025066&sr=1-1), but this should be a good introduction
- Vigny does not exist...
- selected poems of Victor Hugo (http://www.amazon.com/Selected-Poems-Victor-Hugo-Bilingual/dp/0226359816/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267025395&sr=1-1), who was known mostly as a great poet in the 19th century and whose poetic works are immense in the two meanings of the term
- the Trophies (http://www.amazon.com/Sonnets-Trophies-Jose-Maria-Heredia-Rendered/dp/111245957X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267024381&sr=1-2)of Heredia, but this edition is not bilingual

The best is still to learn French so that you will have access to a larger body of texts and you will more appreciate the qualities of these authors. That's why I'm learning English: to be able to fully understand and really love another culture.


HUGO, CLAIR DE LUNE

La lune était sereine et jouait sur les flots. –
La fenêtre enfin libre est ouverte à la brise,
La sultane regarde, et la mer qui se brise,
Là-bas, d'un flot d'argent brode les noirs îlots.

De ses doigts en vibrant s'échappe la guitare.
Elle écoute... Un bruit sourd frappe les sourds échos.
Est-ce un lourd vaisseau turc qui vient des eaux de Cos,
Battant l'archipel grec de sa rame tartare ?

Sont-ce des cormorans qui plongent tour à tour,
Et coupent l'eau, qui roule en perles sur leur aile ?
Est-ce un djinn qui là-haut siffle d'une voix grêle,
Et jette dans la mer les créneaux de la tour ?

Qui trouble ainsi les flots près du sérail des femmes ?
Ni le noir cormoran, sur la vague bercé,
Ni les pierres du mur, ni le bruit cadencé
Du lourd vaisseau, rampant sur l'onde avec des rames.

Ce sont des sacs pesants, d'où partent des sanglots.
On verrait, en sondant la mer qui les promène,
Se mouvoir dans leurs flancs comme une forme humaine... –
La lune était sereine et jouait sur les flots.


MOONLIGHT

The moon was calm, and flecked the ocean streams.
The casement opens freely to the breeze;
While the sultana watches, breaking seas
Weave the black isles below with silver seams.

The lute slips from her fingers as she plays.
She listens:…echoes, dull, from some dull sound.
Is it a Turkish ship, full, homeward bound,
Whose Tartar oars beat the Greek waterways?

Are cormorants plunging successively,
Cleaving the waves, whose pearls roll from their wings?
Perhaps a djinn, with reedy whispers, flings
The tower's battlements into the sea?

Who is thus troubling the seraglio's shores?—
Neither the cormorant cradled on the flow,
Nor the wall's capstones, nor the to-and-fro
Of heavy vessels with their dipping oars.

Merely full sacks emitting muffled screams;
And as they sink, there might perhaps be spied
Something like human forms moving inside.…
The moon was calm, and flecked the ocean streams.

[Paulclem]

I make that:

1) Leopardi with -2344455 = 27
2) Gautier with - 4515123 = 21
3) Neruda with - 3151514 = 20
4) Browning with - 1433332 = 19
5) Lorca with - 5222241 = 18

By ranked order so far.

Does anyone else need to vote? Leopardi is a clear winner so far, and can't be overtaken with one more vote.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Thanks Paul. I think Quasimodo and Virgil are yet to re-vote?

Regardless of if Leopardi does come first or not, I have tried to get hold of a hard copy of him today from the biggest book stores, central library and university libraries in Sheffield and it is impossible! There is only one copy which is locked in the basement of one of the uni libraries available, though the people, for some reason, need notice to bring up from the basement for me to lend it out. I mean come on! The entire Sheffield library (consisting of about 20 branches) does not even own a single copy, neither do the biggest Waterstones or the best second-hand stores in the City – I mean is this chap totally unheard of or what? Seriously, I have blisters on my feet trying to get a copy of his poetry today and could not do so despite willing to part with cash or having a uni card or being very good looking. Really, does this person even exist?

No probs, I can read online or print it off at work at their cost, but it does make one wonder, that this chap is supposed to be up there with the best of the Italian poets behind Dante, and he is all but totally impossible to get hold of, what is really going on? Quite sad.

[JBI]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Canti-Oneworld-Classics-Giacomo-Leopardi/dp/1847490166/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267059785&sr=8-1

That should help you - there are several more translations available.

I personally have an original Italian copy with good footnotes, so if we do decide on a single translation, and Leopardi does win, I probably will just use the translation as a gloss.

[The Comedian]

How important is it, do you all think, that we all have the same translation?

[mayneverhave]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Canti-Oneworld-Classics-Giacomo-Leopardi/dp/1847490166/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267059785&sr=8-1

That should help you - there are several more translations available.

I personally have an original Italian copy with good footnotes, so if we do decide on a single translation, and Leopardi does win, I probably will just use the translation as a gloss.

This is the edition I own, JBI.

This edition is bilingual - a plus - however, it does not have a table of contents, thereby making it rather tedious to look through. Either way, unless its of tremendous importance, this will be the edition I will be using if Leopardi does win.

[stlukesguild]

Since we are closing in on the distinct possibility of Leopardi being our poet of choice I've put in the order for the Eamon Grennan translation which I have heard much good about. Beyond this I have several other older translations to draw from.

[stlukesguild]

If I had to choose to discover a French poet, I’d rather read Du Bellay, Ronsard, Hugo, Vigny or Heredia, whose poetry does not seem well known by the Enghish readers.

OK. To hell with Gautier, Neruda, Garcia-Lorca, and Leopardi. We'll just rush out and buy something by Ronsard, Du Bellay, Hugo, or Heredia at the behest of our first-time poster who finds Gautier to be trifling.:ack2:

[Virgil]

So Leopardi won. Hey that's good. I've wanted to read him. Have we settled on a particular book?

[stlukesguild]

No... we still have a few who have yet voted. Another deadline? Tomorrow at 6:00 PM...?

[mayneverhave]

So Leopardi won. Hey that's good. I've wanted to read him. Have we settled on a particular book?

Leopardi's lyrics are arranged in the Canti, which covers the developmental of his poetry.

[LitNetIsGreat]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Canti-Oneworld-Classics-Giacomo-Leopardi/dp/1847490166/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267059785&sr=8-1

That should help you - there are several more translations available.

I personally have an original Italian copy with good footnotes, so if we do decide on a single translation, and Leopardi does win, I probably will just use the translation as a gloss.

Yes, thanks I'll just have to order it from Amazon, it is not a big problem though I just wanted it there and then. Is this the best copy/translation do you think or what about the one Stlukes mentioned? I'd quite like a duel language edition if possible (though I would be happy to find any).

How important is it, do you all think, that we all have the same translation?

Well personally I don't this it is that much of an issue really as long it is a recommended translation - I always think that different translations can help to bring new elements to the reading.

[B. Laumness]

If I had to choose to discover a French poet, I’d rather read Du Bellay, Ronsard, Hugo, Vigny or Heredia, whose poetry does not seem well known by the Enghish readers.

OK. To hell with Gautier, Neruda, Garcia-Lorca, and Leopardi. We'll just rush out and buy something by Ronsard, Du Bellay, Hugo, or Heredia at the behest of our first-time poster who finds Gautier to be trifling.:ack2:


I did not say that you had to read my five poets rather than yours. Did I speak about Neruda or Leopardi? And when I spoke about Gautier I did not use the term “trifling”. In fact I have just translated Flaubert, whose opinion is not the most idiotic, and I have mentioned two opposite views of two great contemporaries writers on the same work. That does not mean Flaubert does not understand poetry; he praised les Fleurs du Mal. I was a little surprised to see here Gautier instead of Hugo for instance. For the one who speaks French, who studied at the university and taught at high school French literature, the author of Émaux et Camées is a second-class poet. I'm not alone to say it, this is not an extravagant opinion. I don't forget he is good novelist : I liked much his short stories la Morte amoureuse and Avatar, and I considered his novels le Capitaine Fracasse and Mademoiselle de Maupin as excellent novels. But I do not prevent you from reading his poetry, as well as Leopardi's one and the others. I like Leopardi even if I read translations. What impressed me and, dare I say it, changed my mind is his diary, the Zibaldone, full of erudite notes and profound thoughts, as big as a dictionary (2000 pages in my beautiful edition). But again these are just suggestions.

[Paulclem]

I did not say that you had to read my five poets rather than yours. Did I speak about Neruda or Leopardi? And when I spoke about Gautier I did not use the term “trifling”. In fact I have just translated Flaubert, whose opinion is not the most idiotic, and I have mentioned two opposite views of two great contemporaries writers on the same work. That does not mean Flaubert does not understand poetry; he praised les Fleurs du Mal. I was a little surprised to see here Gautier instead of Hugo for instance. For the one who speaks French, who studied at the university and taught at high school French literature, the author of Émaux et Camées is a second-class poet. I'm not alone to say it, this is not an extravagant opinion. I don't forget he is good novelist : I liked much his short stories la Morte amoureuse and Avatar, and I considered his novels le Capitaine Fracasse and Mademoiselle de Maupin as excellent novels. But I do not prevent you from reading his poetry, as well as Leopardi's one and the others. I like Leopardi even if I read translations. What impressed me and, dare I say it, changed my mind is his diary, the Zibaldone, full of erudite notes and profound thoughts, as big as a dictionary (2000 pages in my beautiful edition). But again these are just suggestions.

Hi B. Laumness. We started this thread to decide upon lesser known, but recognised poets that we would like to look at in depth. We came up with a top 5 and are now waiting for a couple of people to vote. If you want to join in with the readings and contribute to the discussions that are going to start, then you are welcome.

:smile5:

[Virgil]

Leopardi's lyrics are arranged in the Canti, which covers the developmental of his poetry.

Great, thanks. I will have to order it.

[mortalterror]

If I had to choose to discover a French poet, I’d rather read Du Bellay, Ronsard, Hugo, Vigny or Heredia, whose poetry does not seem well known by the Enghish readers.
Hello Laumness, I thought your post was fantastic, and your translations beautiful. I too would rather read Boileau's Latrine, Ronsard's sonnets, Valéry's La Jeune Parque, or much anything by Hugo than Gautier's poetry. Welcome to Litnet.

To the rest of the group: Where I may, I'd like to use the Eamon Grennan translation of Leopardi's poems. It's one of my favorites. But I shouldn't have trouble finding others if the need arises.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I think I might punt for the Grennen translation just slightly over the Nichols one, though both of these seem OK to me. I think there is just Vigil and Quasimodo to vote for their 5 if they want to, though it looks like Leopardi is likely to be top. I’m going to order the book anyway, it’ll be the only copy in the whole of Sheffield! :crazy:

I've actually ended up ordering the Nichols one, the Grennen translation that I could find seemed to have far less poems in it.

[Virgil]

I did not realize I needed to vote again. I'm ok with Loepardi. I guess I won't.

[mayneverhave]

I think I might punt for the Grennen translation just slightly over the Nichols one, though both of these seem OK to me. I think there is just Vigil and Quasimodo to vote for their 5 if they want to, though it looks like Leopardi is likely to be top. I’m going to order the book anyway, it’ll be the only copy in the whole of Sheffield! :crazy:

I've actually ended up ordering the Nichols one, the Grennen translation that I could find seemed to have far less poems in it.

When I originally ordered the Canti, I had a good bit of trouble finding a translation to order, let alone a preferred one. The Nichols one, the one JBI linked to, is a dual language edition which has a fair amount of notation, but, as I stated before - no table of contents and no index of first lines. The top of the page also does not feature the name of the poem, so one must literally look at every page to find what they're looking for.

[LitNetIsGreat]

When I originally ordered the Canti, I had a good bit of trouble finding a translation to order, let alone a preferred one. The Nichols one, the one JBI linked to, is a dual language edition which has a fair amount of notation, but, as I stated before - no table of contents and no index of first lines. The top of the page also does not feature the name of the poem, so one must literally look at every page to find what they're looking for.

Have you got a different edition to the one JBI posted though? I looked on the inside the book part on Amazon and it had a table of contents I'm sure, though it didn't let me see far enough to see any of the poems so I don't know about the poems not being listed at the top of the page. I hope it has because that's a little strange to say the least, though at this stage I'd just be happy to get my hands on a copy to be honest.

This is the edition I've ordered:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Canti-Oneworld-Classics-Giacomo-Leopardi/dp/1847490166/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267139192&sr=8-1

Is it the same edition as yours or is yours an earlier one?

[Paulclem]

Have you got a different edition to the one JBI posted though? I looked on the inside the book part on Amazon and it had a table of contents I'm sure, though it didn't let me see far enough to see any of the poems so I don't know about the poems not being listed at the top of the page. I hope it has because that's a little strange to say the least, though at this stage I'd just be happy to get my hands on a copy to be honest.

This is the edition I've ordered:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Canti-Oneworld-Classics-Giacomo-Leopardi/dp/1847490166/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267139192&sr=8-1

Is it the same edition as yours or is yours an earlier one?

It does have a table of contents.

[mayneverhave]

Have you got a different edition to the one JBI posted though? I looked on the inside the book part on Amazon and it had a table of contents I'm sure, though it didn't let me see far enough to see any of the poems so I don't know about the poems not being listed at the top of the page. I hope it has because that's a little strange to say the least, though at this stage I'd just be happy to get my hands on a copy to be honest.

This is the edition I've ordered:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Canti-Oneworld-Classics-Giacomo-Leopardi/dp/1847490166/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267139192&sr=8-1

Is it the same edition as yours or is yours an earlier one?

The edition you linked to pictures an orange cover with the silhouette of an armless statue - I have that. If you click on the cover, or search inside the book, it gives you a different book, with a different cover - this one of an impressionist-looking painting of a boy playing a pipe, lying in the grass with a girl. This one has the table of contents. Honestly, I'm a little annoyed that I didn't get that version instead of the orange one I own. Maybe you'll have better luck.

The orange one simply has all the poems grouped as "Canti" in the table of contents without saying which poem is on what page. Not a major deal, but slightly irritating.

[stlukesguild]

I too would rather read Boileau's Latrine, Ronsard's sonnets, Valéry's La Jeune Parque, or much anything by Hugo than Gautier's poetry.

But of course you would. You are more of a tied-in-the-wool classicist than I have ever been.:smilewinkgrin: Not that I would be against reading Boileau, Ronsard, du Bellay, or Hugo. Unfortunately, over the years I never came upon a solid translated anthology of any of these (with the exception of the recent translations of Hugo by the Blackmores) in spite of looking long for the same. Browsing online, I do see that there are recent translations or recent editions of older translations of all. I will certainly need to be adding these to my library soon.

[LitNetIsGreat]

The edition you linked to pictures an orange cover with the silhouette of an armless statue - I have that. If you click on the cover, or search inside the book, it gives you a different book, with a different cover - this one of an impressionist-looking painting of a boy playing a pipe, lying in the grass with a girl. This one has the table of contents. Honestly, I'm a little annoyed that I didn't get that version instead of the orange one I own. Maybe you'll have better luck.

The orange one simply has all the poems grouped as "Canti" in the table of contents without saying which poem is on what page. Not a major deal, but slightly irritating.

Yes it definitely sounds irritating and badly thought out, I'll just have to see which edition turns up, though there's not much I can do about it either way.

[B. Laumness]

Boileau's Latrine

What’s that? You mean le Lutrin?

I'm afraid that Boileau’s poetry smells old today and that for us its interest is only historical, as an imitation of the ancients and a theory of classicism in the 17th century. In his Art poétique he imitates Horace and appears the heir of the aesthetic principles of Aristotle, understood in a rigid manner. He speaks about the different genres, particularly the theatre, explaining the famous three unities and also two precepts: the rule of ‘probability’ – I don’t know how to translate ‘vraisemblance’ – (that means that what is described or narrated must be probable, seem true without necessarily being true, and everything must follow a reasonable order and not be commanded by fantasy) and the rule of propriety – ‘bienséance’ – (no vulgarity, no violence, no blood). But we may ask the question: is the mechanical observance of all these precepts sufficient to make good poetry? Later the Romantics rejected a part of them and prefered the Shakespearean inspiration.

What is interesting is to see how a genius can create in the frame of a strict codification. Perhaps that helps him to canalize his imagination and form his ideas. I admire Racine for what he succeeded to do in such a frame. After having learned and copied Euripides and once he obeyed that classical rhetoric, he was not imprisoned, but found a liberty. So his verse has a marvellous flow and an ideal purety, almost impossible to translate I guess. With only 2000 words – though the french vocabulary is rich, but all the technical and prosaic terms were forbidden – it remains poetic and sensual. The action of his plays is concentrated, avoids the secondary intrigues and relies on the same economy of means. And as he can’t show fighting and death on the stage, everything depends on the language. His tragedies are tragedies of the language: how to express hate or love, how to tear, to conquer, to kill by words. Phèdre can’t tell her passion, but she has to; Hippolyte tries to tell the truth, but he’s not believed; Thésée calls for punishment and his speech is so powerful that it brings death, even if he eventually does not want such an end, but it was too late, the words were pronounced. For many reasons, Racine is worthy of our admiration, whereas Boileau becomes more and more obscure.

[mortalterror]

What is interesting is to see how a genius can create in the frame of a strict codification. Perhaps that helps him to canalize his imagination and form his ideas. I admire Racine for what he succeeded to do in such a frame. After having learned and copied Euripides and once he obeyed that classical rhetoric, he was not imprisoned, but found a liberty. So his verse has a marvellous flow and an ideal purety, almost impossible to translate I guess. With only 2000 words – though the french vocabulary is rich, but all the technical and prosaic terms were forbidden – it remains poetic and sensual. The action of his plays is concentrated, avoids the secondary intrigues and relies on the same economy of means. And as he can’t show fighting and death on the stage, everything depends on the language. His tragedies are tragedies of the language: how to express hate or love, how to tear, to conquer, to kill by words. Phèdre can’t tell her passion, but she has to; Hippolyte tries to tell the truth, but he’s not believed; Thésée calls for punishment and his speech is so powerful that it brings death, even if he eventually does not want such an end, but it was too late, the words were pronounced. For many reasons, Racine is worthy of our admiration, whereas Boileau becomes more and more obscure.
I've been trying to sell that pitch to people around here for two years now. They don't believe me when I tell them that Racine is almost the equal of Shakespeare. He's barely even translated over here, which is a travesty.

I hadn't realized that Boileau was already considered archaic in the French language. My interest stems from his impact upon another poet who is near and dear to my heart: John Wilmot the 2nd Earl of Rochester.

[Paulclem]

Yes it definitely sounds irritating and badly thought out, I'll just have to see which edition turns up, though there's not much I can do about it either way.

I've ordered that one too. We'll see.

[JBI]

Can we not talk about poets unrelated to the discussion now - whether one likes or dislikes said not mentioned or not voted for or not nominated poets is beside the point - if one wishes to pursue Racine in a discussion they can very easily start a thread on him - I personally wouldn't mind discussing my favorite by him, Phedre which is a great work, but alas, one of many great works.

The goal of the discussion is not to value poets in a hierarchy, but rather to discuss elements in order to understand a) the texts better, b) the text's world (both interior and the period it was constructed in), c) the texts historical relevance and placement in a wider frame, and d) the texts personal affect on the reader today. Whether it be Leopardi or Gautier, the point is, one needs to discuss them before they should go about playing this ordering and ranking game - you are a translator, so you are well versed in such texts, but I myself have read a few of them (in French) and think that one aught not to be so dismissive of things right from the start, and should read them regardless of whether they are Racine, or Hugo, or not.


As said though, the discussion looks to be headed toward Leopardi anyway, a personal favorite, who I have myself translated (though for personal reasons only, since I am a mere student), and I am sure though your Italian is far better than mine, as the massive 4000 page Zibaldone has yet to be translated into English, and your familiarity with it implies you have been exposed to it. I wanted to bring a copy of it here, but alas, couldn't find one reasonably priced (the Garzanti edition, which I would prefer given their excellent scholarship, is over 100 euros).

As for the voting now, can we agree now on a close time for the voting - has everyone voted already?

[B. Laumness]

I understand the goal of the discussion. Precisions: I'm not a translator and unfortunately my Italian is not very good. The whole Zibaldone was translated and published in French in 2003. This is my edition (http://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/2844851312/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_i1?pf_rd_m=A1X6FK5RDHNB96&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=1WB6A9T7ET7QRW8AJE0X&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=463375513&pf_rd_i=405320), bought immediately as soon I read an intriguing review although I did not know well this author. Strange it's not entirely available in English. I'm just noticing that his letters (http://www.amazon.fr/Correspondance-g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale-1807-1837-Giacomo-Leopardi/dp/2844852319/ref=pd_sim_b_1) are published in the same format; I think this book will be mine very soon. Pardon my digressions. Back to his poetry.

[Paulclem]

It doesn't look as though there will be any more votes. Shall we proced with Leopardi?

As I've never heard his name pronounced, is it Leo - (lion) - par - (golf par) - di - (truncated did)

or

Leopard - (big cat) - i - (truncated in) which would mak it sound as if he were leopard like, such as you might get with youghurty - yoghurt like?

I ask because an ex-history teacher of mine whilst a student, having never heard the name Goethe, pronounced him go-eth instead of ger - teh. Very embarassing for him.

:D

[LitNetIsGreat]

Yes I think we should proceed with Leopardi unless anyone has any objections, I think he was well in front anyway.

I would have pronounced it the first way myself, with four syllables, though I'm not sure now that you bring it up.

[Paulclem]

Yes I think we should proceed with Leopardi unless anyone has any objections, I think he was well in front anyway.

I would have pronounced it the first way myself, with four syllables, though I'm not sure now that you bring it up.

I naturally assumed it to be that way too, but I have come to grief on pronunciation before. I read The Gulag Archipelago twenty odd years ago, and proceeded to tell a friend about it. I called it the - for the same reason that I'd never heard the word said before - The Gulag ar-chip -el - lar - go. It sounded great in a Yorkshire accent, but was comically wrong. :D

[LitNetIsGreat]

I naturally assumed it to be that way too, but I have come to grief on pronunciation before. I read The Gulag Archipelago twenty odd years ago, and proceeded to tell a friend about it. I called it the - for the same reason that I'd never heard the word said before - The Gulag ar-chip -el - lar - go. It sounded great in a Yorkshire accent, but was comically wrong. :D

Oh no, you are quite right in bringing it up. I've made such mistakes before - many times probably - and yes often the accused accent only helps to maximises the error at our expense. I've just managed to find it online though and it appears that we were correct this time. :)

[Paulclem]

I've just read a bit about Leopardi online. He had an unfortunate life.

[Virgil]

Is there an agreed to edition I should order, or will anyone do?

[LitNetIsGreat]

Is there an agreed to edition I should order, or will anyone do?

I think people have ordered different editions, and JBI can read in Italian, so take your pick I think. If you flick back over you can see what editions are recommended and the pros and cons of each of them, though basically there are two translations which seem to have come out on top one by Eamon Grennan and one by J.G. Nichols. :)

[Virgil]

I think people have ordered different editions, and JBI can read in Italian, so take your pick I think. If you flick back over you can see what editions are recommended and the pros and cons of each of them, though basically there are two translations which seem to have come out on top one by Eamon Grennan and one by J.G. Nichols. :)

Thanks Neely. If one is dual language (one side Italian, one side English) that is the one i will order.

[mayneverhave]

Thanks Neely. If one is dual language (one side Italian, one side English) that is the one i will order.

The version I have - the aforementioned Orange covered one translated by Nichols - is dual language.

[Virgil]

The version I have - the aforementioned Orange covered one translated by Nichols - is dual language.

Perfect. Now let me see if Amazon has that edition.

Edit: Rats. Amazon seems to have the Nichols translation, but it's not dual language.

[Quark]

If you're doing Leopardi, I'd join in--at least for part of the discussion. There's been a lot of talk about him on the boards, and it would be interesting to see what it's about.

Once you've decided on a particular book, though, will there be a particular order that the poems are talked about? I don't think I'm up to going over an entire poet's body of work, but, if the poems were approached in some sequence, off-and-on posters like me could contribute something now and again. It might also give the conversation some focus (talk to Janine about how important that is). JBI's right to caution in his last post about the discussion leaking into other topics. Although I'm I don't always like the overly academic attitude he tries to enforce, I think he has a point here. And, if the discussion is just a general discussion about a poet, then it seems likely there's going to be a tendency to slip into ranking the poet alongside other poets. You might have better luck taking the poems one at a time in some order. You might also get more posters to participate.

In any case, good luck with the thread. What number is this for the poetry bookclub? 6? 7? I think I participated briefly in 2, but that was over a year ago.

[mayneverhave]

Once you've decided on a particular book, though, will there be a particular order that the poems are talked about? I don't think I'm up to going over an entire poet's body of work, but, if the poems were approached in some sequence, off-and-on posters like me could contribute something now and again. It might also give the conversation some focus (talk to Janine about how important that is). JBI's right to caution in his last post about the discussion leaking into other topics. Although I'm I don't always like the overly academic attitude he tries to enforce, I think he has a point here. And, if the discussion is just a general discussion about a poet, then it seems likely there's going to be a tendency to slip into ranking the poet alongside other poets. You might have better luck taking the poems one at a time in some order. You might also get more posters to participate.



Glad your thinking about joining in Quark. As to the order we'll be tackling the poems - there are certainly (among the collection we're going to be using) some more important poems and some higher quality poems, but I imagine we can deal with what to read specifically when everyone has the volume.

[Paulclem]

If you're doing Leopardi, I'd join in--at least for part of the discussion. There's been a lot of talk about him on the boards, and it would be interesting to see what it's about.

Once you've decided on a particular book, though, will there be a particular order that the poems are talked about? I don't think I'm up to going over an entire poet's body of work, but, if the poems were approached in some sequence, off-and-on posters like me could contribute something now and again. It might also give the conversation some focus (talk to Janine about how important that is). JBI's right to caution in his last post about the discussion leaking into other topics. Although I'm I don't always like the overly academic attitude he tries to enforce, I think he has a point here. And, if the discussion is just a general discussion about a poet, then it seems likely there's going to be a tendency to slip into ranking the poet alongside other poets. You might have better luck taking the poems one at a time in some order. You might also get more posters to participate.

In any case, good luck with the thread. What number is this for the poetry bookclub? 6? 7? I think I participated briefly in 2, but that was over a year ago.

I agree that we should focus upon one poem at a time and limit the discussion around that. It will enable us to focus do some in depth study.

[Virgil]

I agree that we should focus upon one poem at a time and limit the discussion around that. It will enable us to focus do some in depth study.

The way we have done this in the past is that each one of us takes a turn in selecting a poem, we discuss that poem for a while, and then the next person picks one.

[The Comedian]

I put in my order the other day.

[mortalterror]

there are certainly (among the collection we're going to be using) some more important poems and some higher quality poems
There you go ranking poems, May. "This one's good, and that one's bad," which is precisely the kind of thing JBI warned us against!

[OrphanPip]

I ordered mine today, but the expected delivery date is March 12th, oh well. I also had to dig around for some other books to order, since I refuse to pay for shipping.

[JBI]

There you go ranking poems, May. "This one's good, and that one's bad," which is precisely the kind of thing JBI warned us against!

I think the distinction should be made from historical and periodical approaches - though quite simply, the Canti are one work, despite the stand-alone quality of each poem. In that sense, the whole work is the work, not just the "higher quality" or "longer" or "more classical" poems within the collection.

As with Romantics in general, Leopardi as a background to his poems seems to at least require a progressive chronology in interpreting anyway - so we could isolate, for instance, A Sylvia, but it reads better around the other poems, and seems to gain more when read in perspective.

[mayneverhave]

I think the distinction should be made from historical and periodical approaches - though quite simply, the Canti are one work, despite the stand-alone quality of each poem. In that sense, the whole work is the work, not just the "higher quality" or "longer" or "more classical" poems within the collection.

As with Romantics in general, Leopardi as a background to his poems seems to at least require a progressive chronology in interpreting anyway - so we could isolate, for instance, A Sylvia, but it reads better around the other poems, and seems to gain more when read in perspective.

Of course individual poems work better when they're put in their proper context, but I'm not sure close reading the entire Canti is feasible - but who knows.

[quasimodo1]

How about an ISBN for the text being used?

[LitNetIsGreat]

How about an ISBN for the text being used?

I am pretty sure that people have ordered or have already got different copies though, for various reasons. Anyway, I'm not sure that using different translations is a bad idea - I think it might bring new things to the table, though you can hit me with that if it all goes pear-shaped if you want. :boxing_smiley:

[quasimodo1]

Eamon Grennan is the translator I'll go with then... thanks

[Paulclem]

Mine has arrived. Not bad - ordered on saturday.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Mine has arrived. Not bad - ordered on saturday.

Mine too, Mayneverhave's funny orange one with no list of contents. It seems OK though.

[mayneverhave]

Mine has arrived. Not bad - ordered on saturday.

I assume you didn't get the orange cover one - lucky. Is yours dual language?

[stlukesguild]

Mine has yet to arrive... but deliveries have been slowed to to the heavy snows on the East Coast (New York, Washington, etc...) I do have two older translations, however... one of which is bilingual and includes a good deal of notes as well as excerpts from Leopardi's notebooks and other writings. I'm waiting on the Eamon Grennan translation, however.

[Paulclem]

I assume you didn't get the orange cover one - lucky. Is yours dual language?

I did get the orange covered one. It is dual language and has numbered canti. It is different to the one I viewed online which had an introduction. This one has notes at the back.

[Quark]

I sense we're getting close to starting. Is anyone going to start a new thread, or will the discussion just stay in this one? I'll set my signature link to wherever it's going to be.

[The Comedian]

Mine has not yet arrived, but it should be here in a day or two, I reckon.

[stlukesguild]

Whooohooo!

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2801/4411925524_b4f0f908b2_o.gif

My Leopardi book arrived at the same time as my income tax refund!!:banana:


Unfortunately I'm fighting off a particularly nasty sinus infection/flue and feel like death warmed over. I think I'm going to go back to bed and get up tomorrow.:ack2:

[LitNetIsGreat]

Not bad at all, income tax refund sounds pretty tasty as does the Leopardi turning up, though the cold business is not fun at all. :sick: I always have a hot lemon drink and beer when I am feeling like that. The hot lemon because it makes you feel better and the beer because you shouldn't drink it.

I've been reading the Leopardi a little, or "Hamlet" as I am thinking of re-naming him, at least in some poems and very much enjoying what I am reading. "Enjoying" in the sense of thought provoking enjoying, which is not the same "enjoying" when one munches strawberries in the summer, if you get my meaning...

I am looking forward to reading more of him this week, when I can and in starting to pull thoughts together on him when we have all had a proper chance to read a little. Sleep well. :Yawn:

[*Genie*]

I suggest John Donne's love poetry.

.

[stlukesguild]

Genie... welcome to LitNet. The poet of choice has already been selected by voting and we have agreed upon the Italian, Leopardi. Our goal is to have a discussion of a poet that is a bit outside of usual poets we have all read in school (Blake, Byron, Keats, Shelley, etc...). Our discussion will be focused upon the actual text. Donn is certainly a great poet and please feel free to post your thoughts about him to a new thread or the long-running thread on exemplary older poets. I have several threads on French, German, and Spanish poets which I try to add to every now and then. Also fell free to join in the discussion on Leopardi. There are several regulars (myself included) who are among the usual suspects on any discussion of poetry, but we welcome any output from anyone.:wave:

[quasimodo1]

As one of those "usual suspects" let me also welcome Genie to the forum. So great that Stlukes has had a remittance from the venerable irs to arive with the same edition of Leopardi as myself. Looking forward to the commentary. "The seven deadly sins ... Food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes, respectability and children. Nothing can lift those seven milestones from man's neck but money; and the spirit cannot soar until the milestones are lifted."
George Bernard Shaw

[*Genie*]

Thank you,thank you!

As you see I am new here and a bit confused; but it sounds more interesting than what I expected. I would like to get involved. You' ll see me here again soon!

[Virgil]

Oh shoot, I forgot to order this. I can't make up my mind which edition to order. I really want a bi-lingual, and it doesn't appear that I have access to one. Or do I?

What should I get, the Morrison or the Grennan translation?

[LitNetIsGreat]

I've got the J.G. Nichols orange cover edition and I'm quite happy with it. http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=leopardi&x=0&y=0 (top one) It is a duel text and has extracts of his Zibaldone as notes to support each poem. I believe that it is regarded as a good translation. Its also got a few other extras namely a short account of his life (20 or so pages) and a collection of photos. The only downside to note is that there is no table of contents listing each poem or a section dedicated to the first lines of poems (though I never seem to use that anyway). Despite of this though I am quite pleased with it and with the quality of the paper and printing etc. The Grennen translation is also well thought of from what I can gather, it is a duel edition again, but I don't think that it has the notes that the Nichols edition has and it even seems to have less poems in than the Nichols edition based upon using the book search tool on Amazon? I think this is the one that most people have gone with, I’m not sure. I don't know about the Morrison one at all, I can’t seem to see it listed after a quick search. Overall I would certainly recommend the J.G Nichols one and I am happy with it myself, it's a nice little book. :)

[Virgil]

I've got the J.G. Nichols orange cover edition and I'm quite happy with it. http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=leopardi&x=0&y=0 (top one) It is a duel text and has extracts of his Zibaldone as notes to support each poem. I believe that it is regarded as a good translation. Its also got a few other extras namely a short account of his life (20 or so pages) and a collection of photos. The only downside to note is that there is no table of contents listing each poem or a section dedicated to the first lines of poems (though I never seem to use that anyway). Despite of this though I am quite pleased with it and with the quality of the paper and printing etc. The Grennen translation is also well thought of from what I can gather, it is a duel edition again, but I don't think that it has the notes that the Nichols edition has and it even seems to have less poems in than the Nichols edition based upon using the book search tool on Amazon? I think this is the one that most people have gone with, I’m not sure. I don't know about the Morrison one at all, I can’t seem to see it listed after a quick search. Overall I would certainly recommend the J.G Nichols one and I am happy with it myself, it's a nice little book. :)
I don't seem to have the option here in the States for the orange one you ordered. Is this the same book, do you think: http://www.amazon.com/Thoughts-Hesperus-Classics-Giacomo-Leopardi/dp/1843910128/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267993567&sr=1-1?

The Grennen is a dual language edition? It didn't say that in Amazon.

[LitNetIsGreat]

No, don't get that one it is a different thing entirely! I'll see if I can find it on the Amazon US for you.

No, it doesn't seem to be available in the US and I think you are right about the Grennen, it doesn't say that it is duel language, I though I saw that it was. You might have to go for that edition anyway or order the Nichols orange one from the UK, though it might take a while and I don't know the cost difference. It's really annoying. I had the same problems trying to get it from the library, that just wasn't going to happen. Oh, other than that there is an online translation you might want to use instead that Quasimodo passed on to me, it's available here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19315/19315-8.txt

I've printed a few of these off are going to read some alongside my version anyway. Print them off at work when no one is looking!

[Virgil]

Thanks Neely. I'll try to come to some decision.

[OrphanPip]

So odd, because that orange one is the first one to come up on Amazon.ca and when I go to the used editions the sellers are all located in the USA.

[Virgil]

So odd, because that orange one is the first one to come up on Amazon.ca and when I go to the used editions the sellers are all located in the USA.

Yes, I did see that in the used. I don't usually buy the used. Perhaps I should.

[quasimodo1]

Leopardi describes his method of poetic composition: "I compose only when under an inspiration, yielding to which, in two minutes, I have designed and organised the poem. This done, I wait for a recurrence of such inspiration, which seldom happens until several weeks have elapsed. Then I set to work at composition, but so slowly that I cannot complete a poem, however short, in less than two or three weeks. Such is my method; without inspiration it were easier to draw water from a stone than a single verse from my brain."

[stlukesguild]

Virgil, the Grennan translation is a dual language translation. From what I have read it seems to have received the highest accolades as a translation into English poetry... in other words it is not merely an accurate literal translation but one that retains some semblance of the poetry. It is not highly annotated... but I'm not certain I need or want this. I already have the Casale translation in his volume, A Leopardi Reader which includes a good deal of notation, critical commentary, and a good deal of quotes from other writings of Leopardi that the editor/translator felt help to illuminate the poems.

[Virgil]

Virgil, the Grennan translation is a dual language translation. From what I have read it seems to have received the highest accolades as a translation into English poetry... in other words it is not merely an accurate literal translation but one that retains some semblance of the poetry. It is not highly annotated... but I'm not certain I need or want this. I already have the Casale translation in his volume, A Leopardi Reader which includes a good deal of notation, critical commentary, and a good deal of quotes from other writings of Leopardi that the editor/translator felt help to illuminate the poems.

Fabulous. I'll go order it. Muchos gracias. :)

[OrphanPip]

I got mine today, the orange one with no table of contents.

Looks good, but I haven't had a chance to read any of the poems yet.

[The Comedian]

My copy arrived today. I'm ready to roll.

[JBI]

Leopardi describes his method of poetic composition: "I compose only when under an inspiration, yielding to which, in two minutes, I have designed and organised the poem. This done, I wait for a recurrence of such inspiration, which seldom happens until several weeks have elapsed. Then I set to work at composition, but so slowly that I cannot complete a poem, however short, in less than two or three weeks. Such is my method; without inspiration it were easier to draw water from a stone than a single verse from my brain."

Can we take it then, that whenever backpain was at its worst, or he was feeling horny/lonely he got the so called "inspiration", and wrote? Given the subjects, it seems that the inspiration found is generally a connection between history or abstract ideas and his own deformity and perceived failures.

[Quark]

For those of you with dual language versions (and know how to use them), I have a couple of questions about the mood and emotion of "The Infinite." Reading in different books, I've seen the poem treated in a few different ways and I'm curious to know which is closer to the original. Some translations give the last half of the poem a happier ending than others. Take the Kate Flores translation:

And listening to the wind
Rustling in this greenery, to
That infinite silence I compare
This voice: and I ponder the eternal,
And the dead seasons, and the present
And living, and its sound. Thus in this immensity
My meditations drown:
And it is sweet to lose myself in this sea.

In this version, the poem winds up its platonic message with the warm, reassuring last line "And it is sweet to lose myself in this sea." Most translations, though, insert a little trouble or sadness into the poem:

And as I listen to the wind, that through
These trees is murmuring, its plaintive voice
I with that infinite compare;
And things eternal I recall, and all
the seasons dead, and this, that round me lives,
and utters its complaint. Thus wandering,
My thought in this immensity is drowned;
And sweet to me is shipwreck on this sea.

This version makes nature dolorous. And it turns the quiet absorption at the end of the Flores translation into a "shipwreck." Are these details in the Italian? JBI's characterization of the poet as a chronic complainer make me believe the latter translation is more accurate, but I was hoping someone might know for sure.

[Virgil]

I was about to suggest someone start off with a poem. Quark has apparent leadership qualities. :wink5: Why don't you start with that poem? I can't contribute yet, since i don't have my copy, but I think most people do and there's no point in waiting.

[JBI]

Shipwreck is clearly in the original, though in is the better choice of preposition. Shipwreck though is, by my reading, not a negative but a positive, in contrast to the world outside of the infinite. The poem is certainly contrasting the emptiness of the infinite with the pains of life - that is the central idea I think, as to how depressing it is, well that is up to the reader.

[Quark]

Shipwreck is clearly in the original, though in is the better choice of preposition.

Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of "shipwreck" in the translations I'm looking at now. It must just be a quirk of Flores to leave it out. What do you make of the "plaintive" and "complaint" of the second translation? Are those in there, too?


Shipwreck though is, by my reading, not a negative but a positive, in contrast to the world outside of the infinite.

I agree that the last line is still positive, but to say "shipwreck" rather than "lose myself" changes things a little. "Shipwrecks" generally are "negative" since they remind us of danger, mortality, and being lost. I think Leopardi is acknowledging these meanings, and acknowledging that there is a danger to the self involved in drowning one's thought in "immensity." No doubt, Leopardi still believes it's worth it to do so, but there's a slight reservation in that word.


The poem is certainly contrasting the emptiness of the infinite with the pains of life

For some reasons this reminded me of one of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes strips--the one where Calvin unveils his new sculpture "The Torment of Existence Weighed Against the Horror of Nonbeing:"


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y46/fenderrocker/CalvinandHobbeswinter-1.png

While Leopardi is probably being just as intellectually pompous as Calvin, I don't think he's nearly so dramatic. Calvin's focusing on the dilemma, whereas Leopardi is more concerned with how the infinite and finite, immortal and mortal interact in the mind. It's a creative back-and-forth between these concepts that Leopardi seems to be after. To be shipwrecked here is to be absorbed in this interaction.


as to how depressing it is, well that is up to the reader.

Clearly.

[LitNetIsGreat]

The Infinite (trans Nichols)

To me this lonely hill was always precious,
And this hedgerow also, where so wide a stretch
Of the extreme horizon’s out of sight.
But sitting here and gazing, I find that endless
Spaces beyond that hedge, and more-than-human
Silences, and the deepest peace and quite
Are fashioned in my thought; so much that almost
My heart fills up with fear. And as I hear
The wind rustle among the leaves, I set
That infinite silence up against this voice,
Comparing them; and I recall the eternal,
And the dead seasons, and the present one
Alive, and all the sound of it. And so
In this immensity my thought is drowned:
And I delight in sinking in this sea.

I must admit that when I first read this poem, the first part of it immediately reminded me of something not altogether out of Wordsworth, the way the narrator takes comfort (in some way) in re-visiting nature. This is perhaps also the case because he takes pains to name the particular elements of nature in exact detail reaffirming that it is the exact place he has been before “this lonely hill” “this hedgerow” “that hedge” similar to that of say “Tintern Abbey” where Wordsworth does the same with “these waters” “these steep and lofty cliffs” “this dark sycamore” etc, etc. The difference being of course that one takes comfort in nature in itself, even delights in nature, whereby one uses nature simply because it presents the infinite which blocks out darker internal voices and woes. If “The Infinite” can be seen as light in any way, then surely the whole thing is tinged in despair because we know that such temporary reliefs are just that? Because of this for me, the whole piece is still ultimately clouded in sadness because nature or the infinity the narrator gets from nature, only offers a short respite from darker thoughts from which the narrator/Leopardi figure is obviously suffering.

[Paulclem]

The Infinite (trans Nichols)

To me this lonely hill was always precious,
And this hedgerow also, where so wide a stretch
Of the extreme horizon’s out of sight.
But sitting here and gazing, I find that endless
Spaces beyond that hedge, and more-than-human
Silences, and the deepest peace and quite
Are fashioned in my thought; so much that almost
My heart fills up with fear. And as I hear
The wind rustle among the leaves, I set
That infinite silence up against this voice,
Comparing them; and I recall the eternal,
And the dead seasons, and the present one
Alive, and all the sound of it. And so
In this immensity my thought is drowned:
And I delight in sinking in this sea.

I must admit that when I first read this poem, the first part of it immediately reminded me of something not altogether out of Wordsworth, the way the narrator takes comfort (in some way) in re-visiting nature. This is perhaps also the case because he takes pains to name the particular elements of nature in exact detail reaffirming that it is the exact place he has been before “this lonely hill” “this hedgerow” “that hedge” similar to that of say “Tintern Abbey” where Wordsworth does the same with “these waters” “these steep and lofty cliffs” “this dark sycamore” etc, etc. The difference being of course that one takes comfort in nature in itself, even delights in nature, whereby one uses nature simply because it presents the infinite which blocks out darker internal voices and woes. If “The Infinite” can be seen as light in any way, then surely the whole thing is tinged in despair because we know that such temporary reliefs are just that? Because of this for me, the whole piece is still ultimately clouded in sadness because nature or the infinity the narrator gets from nature, only offers a short respite from darker thoughts from which the narrator/Leopardi figure is obviously suffering.

It reminded me of the Romantics too - its vision of time which I've picked up before in Shelley.

I thought it was perhaps less despairing, more accepting - after all it is a return to the eternal - a vision of divinity, although the fear is acknowledged.

[Lynne50]

Just received my copy with Eamon Grennan's translation. Some of the poems I read, (late last night) were very enjoyable to read out loud. I loved Leopardi's imagery of nature, but then the poems all seemed to turn dark and sad. What started out as a celebration of nature, then turned depressive. I wonder if anyone else felt that. I need help with interpretations,that's why I wanted to participate in these discussions, so if I'm totally offbase, please let me know.

Neely, My Eamon Grennan translation starts like this.

Infinitive

I've always loved this lonesome hill...

I have to admit that I like this translation better than the one you cited, but you can only go by the edition you have.

Happy Reading! Everybody

[LitNetIsGreat]

Hi, yes you can only go by the translations you have got, but then again if other translations (and the original of course) bring other thoughts to the table then I am more than happy with that - even if I have to change my thinking slightly because of it, it's not a problem, it's all good fun. :)


I loved Leopardi's imagery of nature, but then the poems all seemed to turn dark and sad. What started out as a celebration of nature, then turned depressive.

Yes I wouldn't disagree with you at all, it's just that I took the celebration of nature not to be celebrating nature for its own sake, as it were, as say Wordsworth clearly does, but in celebrating nature only because it helps to block out his inner thoughts and feelings (which are certainly dark and depressive). In other words my reading is that "I've always loved this lonesome hill" not because he particularly loves the hill, but because the views present the infinite which helps to block out his depressive thoughts. Maybe I am a little clouded in my judgment to the extent of his negative feelings (as Paulclem says he found it less despairing than me) because of reading some of his personal musing in such works as his Zibaldone, which seems to be a sort of diary:

Nowadays I no longer envy the foolish or the wise, the great or the small, the weak or the powerful. I envy the dead, and only with them would I change places. Every pleasing fancy, every thought of the future which I happen to have in my solitude, and with which I pass the time, is concerned with death, and cannot go beyond it. Nor is the desire troubled any more, as it used to be, by the memory of the dream of my youth, and the thought of having lived in vain. If I obtain death, I shall die as peaceful and contented, as if I had never hoped for or desired anything else in the world. This is the only blessing which can reconcile me with destiny. If I were offered on the one hand the fortune and fame of Caesar or of Alexander, free from any blemish, and on the other hand to die today, and if I had to choose, I would say, die today, and I would not need any time to make up my mind.

Death is not an ill: because it frees man from all ills, and together with the good things it takes away the desire for them. Old age is the greatest of all ills; because it deprives man of all pleasures, leaving him only the appetite for them; and it brings with itself all suffering. Nevertheless men fear death, and desire old age.

Not individuals only, but the human race was and always will be inevitably unhappy. Not the human race only, but all the animals. Not the animals only, but all other beings in their own way. Not just the individuals, but the species, the races, the kingdoms, the spheres, the systems, the universes. :party:

So with this in mind to some degree, when I am reading like in the poem above of the narrator's thoughts, I am thinking in terms of things like these. This is why I ultimately see the poem as dark because nature or the infinite can only provide a temporary break from such thoughts. Likewise though, this is just an initial thought and one from which I am not totally unmovable, though often I that that initial thoughts and gut reactions should always be harboured to some extent.

Happy reading!! :)

[Paulclem]

Having read some of his other shorter poems from the anthology now, I can see that he is a pretty depressed individual. It was his later poems that were more depressing. Perhaps he'd had enough by then. I've got more to read though. Infinity seems light compared to the ones about death.

[Virgil]

Hey mine just came in the mail too, just moments ago!! :banana:


Just received my copy with Eamon Grennan's translation. Some of the poems I read, (late last night) were very enjoyable to read out loud. I loved Leopardi's imagery of nature, but then the poems all seemed to turn dark and sad. What started out as a celebration of nature, then turned depressive. I wonder if anyone else felt that. I need help with interpretations,that's why I wanted to participate in these discussions, so if I'm totally offbase, please let me know.

Neely, My Eamon Grennan translation starts like this.

Infinitive

I've always loved this lonesome hill...

I have to admit that I like this translation better than the one you cited, but you can only go by the edition you have.

Happy Reading! Everybody

I have to agree, the Grennan translation comes across more poetic, and though my Italian is not the best, it rings pretty accurately in terms of meaning. It's a short poem. Let me copy the Grennan translation:


Infinitive
(trans Grennan)

I've always loved this lonesome hill
And this hedge that hides
The entire horizon, almost, from sight.
But sitting here in daydream, I picture
The boundless spaces away out there, silences,
Deeper than human silence, an unfathomable hush
In which my heart is hardly a beat
From fear. And hearing the wind
Rush rustling through these bushes,
I pit its speech against infinite silence--
And a notion of eternity floats to my mind,
And the dead seasons, and the season
Beating here and now, and the sound of it. So,
In this immensity my thoughts all drown;
And it's easeful to be wrecked in seas like these.

I know some people have said how this reminds them of the Romantics, but I'm not sure i see the same thing. This is the only one I've read so far, so I can't speak from an intertextual perspective, I can only address from this short poem. The Romantics for the most part see a spirituality in nature, a mystery tending toward the numinous. Here I get the feeling that there is no mystery, no spirituality, no anything but death in nature. I can't say that this is a statement of atheism (though it could be); I'm saying that nature does not seem to contain substenance. Tintern Abbey nourished Wordsworth; there's no noursihment here.

What I find incredibly interesting, though I don't have a reason for why, but the title of the poem is not "Infinity" but "Infinitive." I had to check the Italian to make sure that was correct. The title isn't talking about eternity, which is the subject of the poem, but a grammatical part of speech. And yet "infinitve" has as a root part of the word that wouold suggest infinity, and so there's a sort of pun there. I'm not sure what to make of it.

Lynne, if you're looking to improve your reading of poetry, here's a few things you might want to do. After absorbing the poem, break up the poem into natural segments, and by natural segments i mean kernals of thought. Here's how I would segment the poem:
Part 1:
I've always loved this lonesome hill
And this hedge that hides
The entire horizon, almost, from sight.

Part 2:
But sitting here in daydream, I picture
The boundless spaces away out there, silences,
Deeper than human silence, an unfathomable hush
In which my heart is hardly a beat
From fear. And hearing the wind
Rush rustling through these bushes,
I pit its speech against infinite silence--

Part 3
And a notion of eternity floats to my mind,
And the dead seasons, and the season
Beating here and now, and the sound of it. So,
In this immensity my thoughts all drown;

Part 4
And it's easeful to be wrecked in seas like these.

The next thing is to identify the kernal of though in each part.
Part 1: A description of a place, and how it gives him pleasure.
Part 2: "But" signifies contrast, and so the daydream exercise is in contrast to the pleasurable little hill. So what's the contrast? Pleasure versus fear, finite spot and moment versus boundless space.
Part 3: The boundless space is developed to an abstract thought, "eternity" and his relationship with it - death, overwhelming powerlessness to it.
Part 4: Closure, the death and powerlessness actually alleviates the fear.

Of course there's more to it than just the development. Now you can start looking at the various phrasings, images, and poetic devices and see what those suggest. I'm sure there will be more to discuss. I'll let others jump in here.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Great, thanks for putting the Grennan translation up. Yes, I think I’d have to agree, I like his version more than the Nichols one, it just seems a little tighter and more 'poetic' though which one is closer to the original I wouldn’t claim to know.

I think that you may have misread my connection to the Wordsworth piece though (or I didn’t express my meaning very well) because I would agree there is very little nourishment to be found in nature in this poem, there is no love of nature for nature’s sake. Instead nature seems to function primarily to block out the inner feelings of the narrator in the vastness it presents.

I don’t get what you mean with Infinity/infinitive, do you mean that the translation of the poem’s title is a little odd from the original?

[Quark]

I'm heading off to lunch in few minutes so I don't have very much time to write, but I wanted to comment on the Romanticism connection before there's too many posts to respond to all of them.


I know some people have said how this reminds them of the Romantics, but I'm not sure i see the same thing. This is the only one I've read so far, so I can't speak from an intertextual perspective, I can only address from this short poem. The Romantics for the most part see a spirituality in nature, a mystery tending toward the numinous. Here I get the feeling that there is no mystery, no spirituality, no anything but death in nature. I can't say that this is a statement of atheism (though it could be); I'm saying that nature does not seem to contain substenance. Tintern Abbey nourished Wordsworth; there's no noursihment here.

While I agree that there are some differences between "The Infinite" and "Tintern Abbey," I don't think that means that the poem isn't Romantic. I actually wanted to start with this poem because I thought it is Romantic, and it would be easy to peg. Discussing infinity and how it interacts with the finite is one of the most common things Romantic poets do. From Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre to Shelley's "Mount Blanc" and Coleridge's "Aeolian Harp," the Romantics were obsessed with this idea. In fact, one of the main critical works on the Romantic period is subtitled The Development of the Aesthetics of the Infinite. While it's true that in "Tintern Abbey" the poet find "substenance" or "noursihment" in nature, that's not the case for all Romantic poets at all time. Take "Mount Blanc." The mountain is terrible, and it crushes the imagination. It represents the weight of things on the mind. Shelley writes toward the end of the poem:


The secret strength of things
Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome
Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!

The mountain represents the strength of things here, not the infinite dome of thought. This is similar to the Aeolian Harp:


And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic Harps diversely framed,
That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of All?

Again, nature is filter of "harps" that strain the pure "intellectual breeze." There's no talk of "substenance" or "noursihment" in these lines. It's about how the infinite is colored, changed, resisted by finite nature.

I'll write more about this later, but I'm running out of time now.

[Virgil]

Great, thanks for putting the Grennan translation up. Yes, I think I’d have to agree, I like his version more than the Nichols one, it just seems a little tighter and more 'poetic' though which one is closer to the original I wouldn’t claim to know.

Actually, i would say that it's mixed on this translation. I think the Grennan seems more accurate with this: "an unfathomable hush/In which my heart is hardly a beat/From fear" as opposed to the Nichols "so much that almost/My heart fills up with fear." But I think the Nichols is more accurate in the last line with "delight" versus the Grennan's "easeful." At least according to my poor Italian. Perhaps JBI can weigh in on this.


I think that you may have misread my connection to the Wordsworth piece though (or I didn’t express my meaning very well) because I would agree there is very little nourishment to be found in nature in this poem, there is no love of nature for nature’s sake. Instead nature seems to function primarily to block out the inner feelings of the narrator in the vastness it presents.
I only skimmed the previous number of posts. I don't know if it was you or someone else.


I don’t get what you mean with Infinity/infinitive, do you mean that the translation of the poem’s title is a little odd from the original?
From M-W:

Main Entry: 2infinitive
Function: noun
Date: 1530
: a verb form normally identical in English with the first person singular that performs some functions of a noun and at the same time displays some characteristics of a verb and that is used with to (as in “I asked him to go”) except with auxiliary and various other verbs (as in “no one saw him leave”)
The title is named after a verb form. Isn't that odd? The poem is about infinity and it's titled, "Infinitive."

[Virgil]

I'm heading off to lunch in few minutes so I don't have very much time to write, but I wanted to comment on the Romanticism connection before there's too many posts to respond to all of them.



While I agree that there are some differences between "The Infinite" and "Tintern Abbey," I don't think that means that the poem isn't Romantic. I actually wanted to start with this poem because I thought it is Romantic, and it would be easy to peg. Discussing infinity and how it interacts with the finite is one of the most common things Romantic poets do. From Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre to Shelley's "Mount Blanc" and Coleridge's "Aeolian Harp," the Romantics were obsessed with this idea. In fact, one of the main critical works on the Romantic period is subtitled The Development of the Aesthetics of the Infinite. While it's true that in "Tintern Abbey" the poet find "substenance" or "noursihment" in nature, that's not the case for all Romantic poets at all time. Take "Mount Blanc." The mountain is terrible, and it crushes the imagination. It represents the weight of things on the mind. Shelley writes toward the end of the poem:



The mountain represents the strength of things here, not the infinite dome of thought. This is similar to the Aeolian Harp:



Again, nature is filter of "harps" that strain the pure "intellectual breeze." There's no talk of "substenance" or "noursihment" in these lines. It's about how the infinite is colored, changed, resisted by finite nature.

I'll write more about this later, but I'm running out of time now.

I see your point Quark. Yes the wind through the bushes is similar to the Aeolian Harp metaphor, but with Leopardi, nothing the wind is limited in comparison the the scope of what it's set against, the infinte space. In fact he creates a direct compariosn: "pit its [the wind] speech against infinite silence." I think the key to this is evaluating the silence. There is a dichotomy. The wind is earthly, and the vastness of the horizon brings in another dimension, far reaching. The vastness of the horzon and boundless space is slient, "silences,/Deeper than human silence, an unfathomable hush" and that silence is what brings fear. And then there is the mentioning of dead seasons and the immensity that "drowns." It's only one small poem, and the rest will dictate to how similar or different Leopardi is from the Romantics, but i certainly see a distinction so far.

[Lynne50]

I don’t get what you mean with Infinity/infinitive, do you mean that the translation of the poem’s title is a little odd from the original?

In the Grennan edition I have, the title of the poem is Infinitive Not sure why Grennan used that instead of Infinity.

Virgil Thank you so much for helping me with the interpretations. I do try to read poems out loud, and only pause slightly at commas and then fully stop at periods, so as to get the poet's full thought.

I am curious about the word easeful. Is there such a word? It's kind of hard to grasp exactly what is meant by it.

[Virgil]

Virgil Thank you so much for helping me with the interpretations. I do try to read poems out loud, and only pause slightly at commas and then fully stop at periods, so as to get the poet's full thought.

I am curious about the word easeful. Is there such a word? It's kind of hard to grasp exactly what is meant by it.

Yes, easeful is a word:

ease·ful   /ˈizfəl/ Show Spelled[eez-fuhl]
–adjective
comfortable; quiet; peaceful; restful.

Origin:
1325–75; ME eisefull. See ease, -ful

—Related forms
ease·ful·ly, adverb
ease·ful·ness, noun

That last line is apparently famous because when I searched it, I came up with a bunch of Italian blogs with that name.I can see how easeful might be the better word, but to me "dolce" which directly means sweet could be better translated as "delight" as in the Nichols translation. But "easeful" could be more accurate if there is some complex connotation to the last line that my poor Italian can't pick up.


In the Grennan edition I have, the title of the poem is Infinitive Not sure why Grennan used that instead of Infinity.
Oh you're rigth about the Nichols. No wonder Neely was confused with what i was saying. The Italian is "L'Infinito" which could go both ways I guess.

[Virgil]

I just checked: Infinitive does translate to l'infinito in Italian. So that is a major descrepency in the translations between Nichols and Grennan.

Also I found a youtube video where this poem is spoken in Italian. Really nice, and the voice sounds like my grandfather. :lol: Here, it's a real treat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyN4PN1WXWk

[mayneverhave]

In this poem we get a sense of Leopardi's misanthropy, or at least his belief in the insignificance of humanity in the face of natural forces - at least in this poem perhaps not natural forces, but cold, quiet eternity (time).

"[His] thought is drowned" in the ocean of time - that is the weight of the seasons past and the seasons present. His minuscule little thought is nothing in the immensity of eternity. The poet takes a particular delight in this - as he will in later poems.

[Lynne50]

Yes, easeful is a word:




Boy, I just recently bought a new Merriam Webster dictionary. I guess I should use it, huh? What a dummy!

[Virgil]

Boy, I just recently bought a new Merriam Webster dictionary. I guess I should use it, huh? What a dummy!

Lynne, they have a web site. Here: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary.htm.

I also find this extremely helpful as a dictionary and a thesaurus: http://thesaurus.com/

Plus if you use Yahoo, you can just type a word in and it will send you to all sorts of dictionaries.

[Paulclem]

One thing I thought about his relationship to the Romantics was the meditative element, such as you find in Wordsworth. It is clearly an inner appreciation of the infinite, as the hedgerow obscures the horizon:

To me this lonely hill was always precious
And this hedgerow also , where so wide a stretch
Of the extreme horizon's out of sight.

It's lonely and enclosed alowing his mind to perceive the infinite beyond, which seems counter intuitive, as you would think the infinite more appreciable with a good view of a distant horizon.

I think he answers this with his:

"more than human silences"

which suggests a higher prescence - God? - of which there is fear:

...almost
My heart fills up with fear.

He seems to set up paradoxes in order to perceive this infinite with the solitary enclosed hill to view infinity, infinite silence and the wind rustling, the eternal and the dead seasons.

Do the paradoxes cause his thoughts to drown, and is this why this kind of drowning is tinged with fear, but also a delight?

[Paulclem]

I just checked: Infinitive does translate to l'infinito in Italian. So that is a major descrepency in the translations between Nichols and Grennan.

Also I found a youtube video where this poem is spoken in Italian. Really nice, and the voice sounds like my grandfather. :lol: Here, it's a real treat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyN4PN1WXWk

That's superb. My daughter wants to learn Italian for her GCSE options 14-16 year studies. I wonder if she'll be interested - possibly, though she treats me with a practiced scorn. :D

[mortalterror]

hill, hedge, horizon, daydream, spaces, silence, heart, wind, bushes, speech, eternity, seasons, sound, immensity, seas

The wind rustling through the bushes is obviously his poetry, just as the beat of the season represents the pulse of his heart. He pits sound versus silence, life versus death, a season juxtaposed against eternity. Thus, that which is living makes a temporary sound. Making poetry an expression of his life, however brief. It's interesting that art is the opposite of immortality in this poem. Leopardi's work, his expressions, are temperal like the passing seasons. He does not seek to live through them.

The hill is definitely a source of shelter, a place he can hide from the larger ie threatening aspects of life, symbolised by the horizon. The horizon is a terminus, a point beyond which we cannot see. It stretches out in either direction forever, like the uncertain state we experience before life and after death. Nature is not a solace to Leopardi, as the seas and large spaces are what he's hiding from by the small secluded hedge. But the hill with it's containing hedge is positive. I wonder if he had read Edmund Burke's "A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful". Burke hypothesizes that the small, balanced, polished, and non-threatening is beautiful whereas much of the large and imposing odd shaped structures of nature impose a sense of sublime awe on viewers.

I notice the words "lonesome" and "hides" in the first two lines. He goes to the hill alone, retreating from society. Could the vast seas represent people, the turmoil they cause his soul, and his desire to be alone in his deformity? But he cannot hide from himself. There are two distinct spaces in the poem. The setting starts externally on the hill and moves into his mind on the fourth line. "But sitting here in a daydream... in this immensity my thoughts all drown." All the external stimulae are peaceful. What's internal is where all of Leopardi's problems lie. He mentions that he loves the hill, but does he love it because it keeps him safe, or because it allows him to daydream?

Could the hill and the hedge represent another state of mind? One where he is neither thinking about the future nor the past? "It's easeful to be wrecked in seas like these." Is he saying that he would rather contemplate the big vital topics, that he enjoys the "fear" and excitement that come from contemplating his own demise more than tranquility and lack of thought?

[LitNetIsGreat]

Just a very quick post before bed...

Yes when Quark mentioned Shelley and “Mount Blanc” I thought of the sublime, but I think it operates differently here for it is not about being in awe of nature or questioning existence but simply using nature as a means of peace.


What's internal is where all of Leopardi's problems lie. He mentions that he loves the hill, but does he love it because it keeps him safe, or because it allows him to daydream?

I still read it as the latter. He loves the hill, not for the hill’s sake, but because the infinity of the scope of nature blocks out his internal woe. :as-sleep:

[JBI]

I don't know if the season is juxtaposed against eternity mortal. The season I think corresponds with the infinite, as the wind flows through bringing about the cyclical change - it is all contrasted against his limited life, and own decay. The image of the hill could mean anything, but I like to think of it as the place of vision, rather than of comfort, in that he looks out at all that is eternal bellow him, and contrasts its cyclical infinity with his limitation.

[Paulclem]

Just a very quick post before bed...

Yes when Quark mentioned Shelley and “Mount Blanc” I thought of the sublime, but I think it operates differently here for it is not about being in awe of nature or questioning existence but simply using nature as a means of peace.



I still read it as the latter. He loves the hill, not for the hill’s sake, but because the infinity of the scope of nature blocks out his internal woe. :as-sleep:

The hill is definitely a source of shelter, a place he can hide from the larger ie threatening aspects of life, symbolised by the horizon. The horizon is a terminus, a point beyond which we cannot see. It stretches out in either direction forever, like the uncertain state we experience before life and after death.

I was just thinking about this - isn't there the idea that directly perceiving "God" would result in death? I can't remember where i read it, but Moses talking to the burning bush is an example.

So the hill would allow an inner view, but not a direct view of the far horizon, and is protective of him behind the hedge.

[Quark]

So with this in mind to some degree, when I am reading like in the poem above of the narrator's thoughts, I am thinking in terms of things like these. This is why I ultimately see the poem as dark because nature or the infinite can only provide a temporary break from such thoughts.

Given what we know about Leopardi, you're probably right that the poem expresses some unwillingness or inability to deal with harsh reality. No doubt Leopardi harbored some pretty bleak ideas. One could interpret the poet's meditations in "Infinitive" or "Infinite" as a defense mechanism--a big diversion from ugly thoughts. After all, when we say we're going to go "drown" our thoughts, it's usually not a terribly happy time in our lives.

Of course, I don't think we should write off the poem as just a distraction for the poet, though. There is something genuinely important to the poet's meditation here. It isn't just a negation of Leopardi's dark thoughts. On the hill, the poet becomes aware of the difference and similarities between past and present, intellectual and material, infinite and finite. These are important ideas to a Romantic poet. I think Leopardi is trying to show that there's something actually fruitful about comparing these opposing ideas. It's not just a mental diversion. Although, it might be that, too.


Infinity seems light compared to the ones about death.

Well it sounds like many posters have a pretty dark take on "Infinity." I'm with you, though. The poem rings a little happier for me than many of his other ones.


Here's how I would segment the poem:
Part 1:
I've always loved this lonesome hill
And this hedge that hides
The entire horizon, almost, from sight.

Part 2:
But sitting here in daydream, I picture
The boundless spaces away out there, silences,
Deeper than human silence, an unfathomable hush
In which my heart is hardly a beat
From fear. And hearing the wind
Rush rustling through these bushes,
I pit its speech against infinite silence--

Part 3
And a notion of eternity floats to my mind,
And the dead seasons, and the season
Beating here and now, and the sound of it. So,
In this immensity my thoughts all drown;

Part 4
And it's easeful to be wrecked in seas like these.

The next thing is to identify the kernal of though in each part.
Part 1: A description of a place, and how it gives him pleasure.
Part 2: "But" signifies contrast, and so the daydream exercise is in contrast to the pleasurable little hill. So what's the contrast? Pleasure versus fear, finite spot and moment versus boundless space.
Part 3: The boundless space is developed to an abstract thought, "eternity" and his relationship with it - death, overwhelming powerlessness to it.
Part 4: Closure, the death and powerlessness actually alleviates the fear.

Those are helpful divisions. I might move "And hearing the wind/ Rush rustling through these bushes,/ I pit its speech against infinite silence" into the third part, though, since it's part of the comparison between nature and the infinite. It's not really part of the daydream of the infinite. Those lines kick off the juxtaposition that happens in part three.

Edit:
I'm laughing now because I see that there's ten new posts already posted in the time it took me to respond to just three posts. I'm never going to catch up.

[Paulclem]

I must say that this is what I'm after from a poetry thread.
And so to bed.

:D

[Quark]

The wind rustling through the bushes is obviously his poetry, just as the beat of the season represents the pulse of his heart.

Yes, with words like "wind," "speech," and "sound" there's clearly a reference to poetry itself. This isn't just a mental exercise. It's a verbal one, as well, and Leopardi is commenting on inspiration, composition, and reception. To say that the wind through the bushes is plaintive or reminds him of death, is to say that the poetry is, too. To say that the wind comes from an infinite realm beyond the natural and material, is to say that his inspiration is also. And, to say that's "easeful" or "sweet" to be shipwrecked on these meditations, is to say that reading this poem is "sweet" and "easeful." There's a lot going on this poem. It's not just daydreaming about infinity, nor is just trying to distract oneself from unpleasant thoughts. It's also a commentary on poetry and art.


He pits sound versus silence, life versus death, a season juxtaposed against eternity. Thus, that which is living makes a temporary sound. Making poetry an expression of his life, however brief. It's interesting that art is the opposite of immortality in this poem. Leopardi's work, his expressions, are temperal like the passing seasons. He does not seek to live through them.

I think there's some concern that poetry is made of ephemeral stuff. But, at the same time, I think Leopardi is arguing that there's also something of the infinite and permanent, as well. Remember, the wind is omnipresent: it exists in the infinite range beyond as well as the hill. It only makes noise on the hill because there's something of substance for it to create a sound. This is similar to the Aeolian Harp analogy that many Romantic poets use. The harp represents the material and temporal world, and, yes, it is the thing that creates poetry. But, in order to operate it, you need wind--which represents the infinite. I think Leopardi is espousing something like that. That is, a poetry that is a collaboration of finite and infinite.


The hill is definitely a source of shelter, a place he can hide from the larger ie threatening aspects of life, symbolised by the horizon.

Neely has been pitching this idea all day and part of yesterday, and, while there's definitely something to it, I don't think it completely gets what's going on the poem. We can think of the hill, hedge, and horizon in psychological terms. It would look something like this if we did:

The hill: consciousness, the ego, thought
The hedge: a defense mechanism to keep out unpleasant realities that might threaten our life on the hill
The horizon: unfiltered reality, what we know

I agree with this reading up to a point. Yes, Leopardi had a dark worldview at times, and the hill seems like an escape from it (Paulem already pointed out how the poem is lighter than Leopardi's others). But, at the same time, we have acknowledge that there's something of value going on in the meditation itself. I think we can interpret the hill, hedge, and horizon in another way which saves the meditation. These relate to more than just psychological states. They also relate to platonic conceptions of consciousness. The hedge is there not just to block unpleasant thoughts. It's there because the material world conceal the ideal world. The horizon is like a platonic sun and the hill is a place where the poet can see both the shadows on the wall and the sun itself. I think that this platonic reading of the poem is present alongside the psychological reading.


I wonder if he had read Edmund Burke's "A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful".

If Leopardi did, he certainly problematizes it in this poem. He slips "easeful" into an "immensity" here--something I don't think Burke would have considered possible.


I notice the words "lonesome" and "hides" in the first two lines. He goes to the hill alone, retreating from society. Could the vast seas represent people, the turmoil they cause his soul, and his desire to be alone in his deformity?

Yeah, we haven't talked about the social aspect of this poem. I'm not going to start in on yet, though, until things calm down a little on the thread. Introducing a new topic doesn't seem like a smart thing to do right now.


Could the hill and the hedge represent another state of mind? One where he is neither thinking about the future nor the past? "It's easeful to be wrecked in seas like these." Is he saying that he would rather contemplate the big vital topics, that he enjoys the "fear" and excitement that come from contemplating his own demise more than tranquility and lack of thought?

The end is a little ambiguous. We don't know whether he's thinking about both future and past or neither. I tend to think that neither is exclusively taking up his attention, but rather that he's going back and forth between the two. That interplay between opposing ideas creates the immensity that he wants drown his thoughts into.


I don't know if the season is juxtaposed against eternity mortal. The season I think corresponds with the infinite, as the wind flows through bringing about the cyclical change - it is all contrasted against his limited life, and own decay.

When it says the "season/ beating here and now" that sounds like something juxtaposed with eternity, as does "dead seasons." The seasons seem to be able to decay just like the speaker.


The image of the hill could mean anything, but I like to think of it as the place of vision, rather than of comfort, in that he looks out at all that is eternal bellow him, and contrasts its cyclical infinity with his limitation.

While I can see the hill as a shelter, I have to agree with JBI that it probably more of a place of vision. It's lonely, yes, but it's also a high place that for vision. If it were a hole, or something like that, it might be easier to think of this as just a shelter. One doesn't seek shelter on peaks, though.

[mortalterror]

I don't know if the season is juxtaposed against eternity mortal. The season I think corresponds with the infinite, as the wind flows through bringing about the cyclical change - it is all contrasted against his limited life, and own decay. The image of the hill could mean anything, but I like to think of it as the place of vision, rather than of comfort, in that he looks out at all that is eternal bellow him, and contrasts its cyclical infinity with his limitation.
But you aren't considering what a fine classical scholar he was, and the education he received. A season, in this poem, is the space of a human life. Past seasons are the lives of his ancestors or past poets.

And the dead seasons, and the season
Beating here and now, and the sound of it.
I don't see the wind as being a part of the infinite. When I see those lines about the wind, I think of the old testament; where God is a breath of wind, a spoken word, and the breathe is life. It stirs the leaves and bushes. It makes a sound. Death has no motion in this poem, it's all stillness and silence. Noise, and speech are affirmations of life. That's why I think the wind represents his poetry. Writing isn't about longevity but existence itself, like breathing. At the same time, he knows that his writing is useless, when weighed in the balance, just as he knows he's going to die.

He's not looking out because there is nothing to look out at. His view is blocked by the hedge. This is a poem about an internal journey and a man surrendering his ego to the void.

[mortalterror]

I think there's some concern that poetry is made of ephemeral stuff. But, at the same time, I think Leopardi is arguing that there's also something of the infinite and permanent, as well. Remember, the wind is omnipresent: it exists in the infinite range beyond as well as the hill. It only makes noise on the hill because there's something of substance for it to create a sound. This is similar to the Aeolian Harp analogy that many Romantic poets use. The harp represents the material and temporal world, and, yes, it is the thing that creates poetry. But, in order to operate it, you need wind--which represents the infinite. I think Leopardi is espousing something like that. That is, a poetry that is a collaboration of finite and infinite.
I can get behind that thought. But what's really bothering me is that if we are agreed that the wind is his poetry, then what are the leaves and bushes it's shaking? For that matter, what is the hedge?

You make a good point about the hill being exposed.

[Quark]

But what's really bothering me is that if we are agreed that the wind is his poetry, then what are the leaves and bushes it's shaking? For that matter, what is the hedge?

It's language. It's the material of the book. It's everything that limits us from understanding directly one-mind-to-another what Leopardi is thinking and feeling. Since the Romantic conception of poetry is "a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings," the ideal art would be telepathic one. But, since humans are dumb to what others are feeling, we need material and linguistic expressions. Immaterial wind coming through a material object (like a hedge or harp) is a common Romantic trope for this process. I think Leopardi is working off this playbook.

[JBI]

It's language. It's the material of the book. It's everything that limits us from understanding directly one-mind-to-another what Leopardi is thinking and feeling. Since the Romantic conception of poetry is "a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings," the ideal art would be telepathic one. But, since humans are dumb to what others are feeling, we need material and linguistic expressions. Immaterial wind coming through a material object (like a hedge or harp) is a common Romantic trope for this process. I think Leopardi is working off this playbook.

Strange to note though that at this point in his career he was heavily rooted in Classicism over Romanticism that was popping up, and only really got associated with Romanticism a little later after he turned much, much darker.

[quasimodo1]

Outstanding find, that youtube recitation Virgil... in case anyone ever doubted the superior musicality of Italian over English. (Leopardi might even have approved the soundtrack?) Barnes, in the introduction, makes a clear statement about "Infinitive"... {But it is with "Infinitive" that Leopardi fully discovers

his own voice, setting aside public themes and focusing on objects and landscapes which take on far-reaching

emotional resonances. "Infinitive" is the fiirst of a group of five poems composed between 1819 and 1821

(the first five in this selection), which Leopardi called "idylls." Here evocation and memory come to the

fore, while grief at the dashing of cherished hopes and the inexorable passing of time is sublimated in calm

contemplation of an immense, all-embracing nature. It was only later that Leopardi came to identify nature

itself as the prime cause of human unhappiness, a view that underlies his "great idylls" of 1829-30 (from

"The Solitary Thrush" to "Night Song of a Nomadic Shepard in Asia"). these poems evince a sense of universal

pain and a compassion that extends to all living people.}

[Virgil]

One thing I thought about his relationship to the Romantics was the meditative element, such as you find in Wordsworth. It is clearly an inner appreciation of the infinite, as the hedgerow obscures the horizon:

To me this lonely hill was always precious
And this hedgerow also , where so wide a stretch
Of the extreme horizon's out of sight.

It's lonely and enclosed alowing his mind to perceive the infinite beyond, which seems counter intuitive, as you would think the infinite more appreciable with a good view of a distant horizon.

I think he answers this with his:

"more than human silences"
Yes, Paul. That is the starting point, but the "But" on the very next line delineates a strong contrast, and that contrast is what is developed for the rest of the poem, except perhpas for that last line. Does that last line bring him back to the emotions on the hill? If one sees that last line in that way, then one could make an argument of Romanticism for the poem. If one looks at that last line as concluding the emotions of the immensity and drowning,as I think I do, then then it strikes me as different from Romanticism. Like I said before, there is no nourishment or spirituality in nature, and whatever easeful or delight he's getting seems to be some morbid attraction to death.


which suggests a higher prescence - God? - of which there is fear:

...almost
My heart fills up with fear.

He seems to set up paradoxes in order to perceive this infinite with the solitary enclosed hill to view infinity, infinite silence and the wind rustling, the eternal and the dead seasons.

Do the paradoxes cause his thoughts to drown, and is this why this kind of drowning is tinged with fear, but also a delight?
Could be. I guess it's too short a poem to really conclude much on the God question. I had read it as a sort of atheism ("infinite silence"), but I think you've got a good argument there on the possiblity of God. Here's where an intertextual check with his other works might persuade us one way or the other.



That's superb. My daughter wants to learn Italian for her GCSE options 14-16 year studies. I wonder if she'll be interested - possibly, though she treats me with a practiced scorn. :D
Oh that's great. I hope she enjoys it. But she sounds like a typical teenager. :lol:


hill, hedge, horizon, daydream, spaces, silence, heart, wind, bushes, speech, eternity, seasons, sound, immensity, seas

The wind rustling through the bushes is obviously his poetry, just as the beat of the season represents the pulse of his heart.
I don't know if that's obvious, but it is within the realm of possibility. I don't read those words as symbolic or metaphoric. It just seems like he's describing the wind. But I grant you, we could possibly stretch it to suggest that.


He pits sound versus silence, life versus death, a season juxtaposed against eternity. Thus, that which is living makes a temporary sound. Making poetry an expression of his life, however brief. It's interesting that art is the opposite of immortality in this poem. Leopardi's work, his expressions, are temperal like the passing seasons. He does not seek to live through them.
I think those are really good observations. I pretty much agree with you.


The hill is definitely a source of shelter, a place he can hide from the larger ie threatening aspects of life, symbolised by the horizon. The horizon is a terminus, a point beyond which we cannot see. It stretches out in either direction forever, like the uncertain state we experience before life and after death. Nature is not a solace to Leopardi, as the seas and large spaces are what he's hiding from by the small secluded hedge. But the hill with it's containing hedge is positive.
The horizon is threatening but I think you're stretching the symbolism too far. There's no suggestion that the nartrator is threatened by "aspects of life." I do agree that nature is no solace.


I notice the words "lonesome" and "hides" in the first two lines. He goes to the hill alone, retreating from society. Could the vast seas represent people, the turmoil they cause his soul, and his desire to be alone in his deformity? But he cannot hide from himself. There are two distinct spaces in the poem. The setting starts externally on the hill and moves into his mind on the fourth line. "But sitting here in a daydream... in this immensity my thoughts all drown." All the external stimulae are peaceful. What's internal is where all of Leopardi's problems lie. He mentions that he loves the hill, but does he love it because it keeps him safe, or because it allows him to daydream?
I pretty much agree with everything there except the vast seas representing people thought. Again, I think you're stretching the symbolism beyond what is there. I like the way you distiguish the internal and the external.


Could the hill and the hedge represent another state of mind? One where he is neither thinking about the future nor the past? "It's easeful to be wrecked in seas like these." Is he saying that he would rather contemplate the big vital topics, that he enjoys the "fear" and excitement that come from contemplating his own demise more than tranquility and lack of thought?
Hmm, that's a possibility. I could go along with that reading, though I'm reading the poem more literally than you are. I think he feels insiginficant set against the infinity of the horizon and the sea.

[Virgil]

I can get behind that thought. But what's really bothering me is that if we are agreed that the wind is his poetry, then what are the leaves and bushes it's shaking? For that matter, what is the hedge?

While the wind is certainl tied to the earthly elements in the poem, including the the poet's voice, I still think it's a stretch to say the wind represents his poetry. Such a symbolic, almost allegorical, reading of the poem, leads you into the specious, like trying to find symbols for everything.


It's language. It's the material of the book. It's everything that limits us from understanding directly one-mind-to-another what Leopardi is thinking and feeling. Since the Romantic conception of poetry is "a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings," the ideal art would be telepathic one. But, since humans are dumb to what others are feeling, we need material and linguistic expressions. Immaterial wind coming through a material object (like a hedge or harp) is a common Romantic trope for this process. I think Leopardi is working off this playbook.
You're not convincing. The deep silence of the infinity overwhelms his personal feelings. There is a difference here from the Romantics.


Strange to note though that at this point in his career he was heavily rooted in Classicism over Romanticism that was popping up, and only really got associated with Romanticism a little later after he turned much, much darker.
I don't know much about his life and ideas, but I sense that's true.


Outstanding find, that youtube recitation Virgil... in case anyone ever doubted the superior musicality of Italian over English. (Leopardi might even have approved the soundtrack?)
Absolutely. :)



Barnes, in the introduction, makes a clear statement about "Infinitive"... {But it is with "Infinitive" that Leopardi fully discovers

his own voice, setting aside public themes and focusing on objects and landscapes which take on far-reaching

emotional resonances.
I see how "Infinitive" as a grammatical word could suggest his poetic voice, but still the title eludes me. There has to be more to it. Could it be an ironic stance? His voice is miniscule to the infinity, even though he chooses a word that puns infinity. Perhaps that's the significance.


"Infinitive" is the fiirst of a group of five poems composed between 1819 and 1821

(the first five in this selection), which Leopardi called "idylls." Here evocation and memory come to the

fore, while grief at the dashing of cherished hopes and the inexorable passing of tiime is sublimated in calm

contemplation of an immense, all-embracing nature. It was only later that Leopardii came to identify nature

itself as the prime cause of human unhappiness, a view that underlies his "great idylls" of 1829-30 (from

"The Solitary Thrush" to "Night Song of a Nomadic Shepard in Asia"). these poems evince a sense of universal

pain and a compassion that extends to all living people.}
Good find Quasi. I think that does help in setting the poem within his work's context.

[quasimodo1]

This is probably a leap, but the choice of "infinitive" I take as an ironic choice over the use of "infinite", as if Leopardi wants to be subjunctive instead of declarative in tone. / An excerpt from a letter to Pietro Giordani (1917) -- "Poetry requires infinite study and application, and its art is so profound, that the more you advance in proficiency, so much the further does perfection seem to recede... To be a good prose writer first, and a poet later, seems to me to be contrary to nature, which first creates the poet, and then by the cooling operation of age concedes the maturity and tranquility necessary for prose." {30th April 1817.}

[Quark]

Strange to note though that at this point in his career he was heavily rooted in Classicism over Romanticism

It would interesting to see how classicism makes its way into the text. The form of the poem, its genre, and subject matter seem to be very Romantic. I pointed out--in a post probably fifty posts back now--how the central act of this poem (meditating on the infinite and finite) has many similarities with key Romantic poems. Shelley's "Mount Blanc" and Coleridge's "Aeolian Harp" are two, but you can find examples all over the place. Another Romantic element is its genre: reflective lyric. The poet is meditating alone, and we're supposed to be "overhearing" (see Mill's definition of poetry which is frequently considered Romantic) the poet's self-address. This isn't a performance with lots of classical rhetoric (something we would see in a classicism mode). The poem is about the thoughts of a lone speaker. The poem makes clear that the poet is imagining the infinite. In a classicist poem, you would expect that the infinite or ideal or immense would be something real that the poet would understand--rather than something they would imagine. These are all basic building blocks of Romantic poetry. That doesn't mean that there isn't anything classical, though. Often critics set Romanticism and Classicism up as mutually exclusive since it makes explaining them easier, but frequently there's overlap.


You're not convincing.

I'm not trying to convince you, Virgil. I'm just explaining my interpretation of the poem and how I came to that interpretation.

I am curious, though, why you now disagree with Aeolian Harp reference when you up until recently you seemed to agree that it was there:


Yes the wind through the bushes is similar to the Aeolian Harp metaphor

That was six hours ago. You did go on to qualify your agreement:


but with Leopardi, nothing the wind is limited in comparison the the scope of what it's set against, the infinte space. In fact he creates a direct compariosn: "pit its [the wind] speech against infinite silence." I think the key to this is evaluating the silence. There is a dichotomy.

I think you'll agree that this kind of misses the point, though. In the poem it's not the wind that is limited but the sound it makes in the bushes:


And hearing the wind
Rush rustling through these bushes,
I pit its speech against infinite silence

It's not the wind that is limited, but it's "speech." As I explained before, the speech of the wind is the physical, linguistic embodiment of poetry in the Aeolian Harp metaphor. Thus, this is entirely within the usual Aeolian Harp metaphor.

What I was explaining in the post you quoted above was the Aeolian Harp. And I wasn't giving a far-fetched description. This isn't Quark spinning one of his wild theories. It's pretty much right down main street, "Intro to Lit" kind of stuff. As for this:


The deep silence of the infinity overwhelms his personal feelings.

One might argue the entire poem is his personal feeling. But you don't even need to do that. The infinity is an imagined one. Imagination is only one of the biggest words in the Romantic vocabulary. And, again, this fits exactly with the Aeolian Harp metaphor. Imagination is the wind in that stirs the Aeolian Harp, just as imagination is the inspiration for the Romantic poet. The harp represents the material and limited world which inspiration has to pass through to becomes poetry. It creates audible sound or written poetry that others can experience. Similarly, the bush makes sound.

That's all I'm saying. You can interpret it any way you want.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Good postings everyone, a lot to go on, good You Tube find Virgil.

I just thought I’d quickly share the note in the Nichols edition on this poem which comes from the Zibaldone once again, as it might be of interest:

...at times the spirit...desires a view which is in certain ways restricted and confined... The reason is...the desire for the infinite, because in those circumstances the imagination goes to work instead of the eyesight, and fantasy takes the place of what is real. The spirit imagines for itself what it cannot see, what that tree, that hedge, that tower hides from it, and goes wandering in an imaginary space, and pictures things it would not be able to if its sight extended everywhere, because the real would exclude the imaginary. Hence the pleasure which I always used to experience as a child, and do even now, in seeking the sky etc. Though a window, a doorway...

I think that there is a lot to take from this extract to support many peoples’ thoughts on the poem. For one it certainly shows his importance the imaginary has on Leopardi and the obvious connection that has with Romanticism. It clearly shows the favour of imagination over realism in this sense. From this piece it also paints a less bleak image perhaps as to the need for the infinite in order to tackle thoughts of a darker nature, there is some pleasure for pleasures sake. Of course the poem is the primary concern but I just thought I'd share it anyway.

[Virgil]

I'm not trying to convince you, Virgil. I'm just explaining my interpretation of the poem and how I came to that interpretation.

I am curious, though, why you now disagree with Aeolian Harp reference when you up until recently you seemed to agree that it was there:



That was six hours ago. You did go on to qualify your agreement:

I didn't realize you were going for a law degree and you were practicing your cross examination skills on me. :lol: Yes I acknowledged that the wind goes through the bushes like the Aeolian Harp, but I did not acknowledge I thought that's what Leopardi was referring to. The rest of my response was not a qualification to an agreement, but a refutation of the Aeolian Harp metaphor as analogous. I began that refutation with "But" which indicates I wasn't agreeing. :wink5:

Look I think this is such a short poem, it's possible to read this through the prism of Romanticism and through the prism of something other than Ramonticism, say Neo-Classicism. Or it's possible he's intentionally or unintentionally blending elements of both. A poet doesn't sit down and say i'm going to write a romanitc poem today, at least not a good poet.

[mortalterror]

And I wasn't giving a far-fetched description. This isn't Quark spinning one of his wild theories. It's pretty much right down main street, "Intro to Lit" kind of stuff.
Balderdash. We've been hoodwinked!

[Quark]

but I did not acknowledge I thought that's what Leopardi was referring to

Backpedal, backpedal, backpedal. You said it was like the "Aeolian Harp metaphor," not the "Aeolian Harp." And, if you meant it was similar in only the most superficial of senses, why wouldn't you say that? Isn't it misleading to start a "refutation" of something by agreeing with them?


The rest of my response was not a qualification to an agreement, but a refutation of the Aeolian Harp metaphor as analogous.

And some refutation it was.


it's possible to read this through the prism of Romanticism and through the prism of something other than Ramonticism, say Neo-Classicism

I'm open to that possibility, but no one has given us any reason to believe that the poem is Neo-Classical. Meanwhile, there are many reasons why it's Romantic: its subject has precedents in the Romantic tradition, the reflective lyric is a choice form of the Romantics, the speaker is addressing himself or herself on a "lonesome hill," there's a reference to the Aeolian Harp. All of these are reasons to look at the poem in a Romantic context. If there's something Neo-Classical, bring it forward.


A poet doesn't sit down and say i'm going to write a romanitc poem today

And yet there are Romantic poems. It doesn't matter what they intend to do when they sit down. Literary movements are not defined by what the artist is thinking when his or her asss hits the chair. Rather, they come from the subject of the work of art, its attitudes, form, vocabulary, and reception. Many poets believe that they're writing in one tradition when really they'll find their home in another. Two of the six major English Romantic poets (Blake and Byron) wanted to be considered part of earlier literary traditions. Yet they make up the heart of Romanticism now.


at least not a good poet

Some people consider the British Romantic poets to be a highlight of British literature. I don't understand why putting a poem in it's literary-historical context makes it a bad poem. I guess, if it was just a generic Romantic poem with nothing else to distinguish it, that might be boring. No one is suggesting that, though. In fact, I said earlier:


There's a lot going on this poem. It's not just daydreaming about infinity, nor is just trying to distract oneself from unpleasant thoughts. It's also a commentary on poetry and art.

There is a lot going on this poem. It's not just any one thing. And, again, I find this an odd reversal from you. You've been shooting down any reading of the poem that you yourself have not already authored. To Paulem noticing the meditative element of the poem, to mortal suggesting that the poet is fleeing people, to mortal suggesting there's a commentary on artistic creation, to me suggesting that the poem is Romantic--to each of these you've folded your arms and shook your head. You've clung to one pretty reductive reading of the poem throughout: one where the infinite overwhelms the personal. That's a good reading, but when you turn around and claim that my reading is reductive--that to call it Romantic is to call it bad--then I'm surprised.

And one last thing before I drop this:


Does that last line bring him back to the emotions on the hill? If one sees that last line in that way, then one could make an argument of Romanticism for the poem.

This is not the definition of Romanticism. You've gotten hung up on Wordsworthian emotion, and you've let that define Romanticism for you. A lot of Romantic poetry, though, doesn't have sentimental shepherds or warm and fuzzy descriptions of landscapes. Much of it is cold and abstract. I gave some examples of this earlier. Shelley's "Mount Blanc" is a good one. Nature is not emotionally regenerative here; instead, it's quite terrible or plaintive. Romanticism is about a certain orientation to society and the self. It's about valuing imagination and sympathy over materiality and community. Romantics appreciate inspiration over effort. Many of them do idealize the trees and the hills, but not all of them. We shouldn't make nature appreciation the be-all and end-all of Romanticism.


Balderdash. We've been hoodwinked!

I don't even know what this means.

[mortalterror]

I don't even know what this means.
I am merely suggesting that you are deliberately attempting to mislead the group. Virgil and I are wise to your games. He knows that I know, I know that he knows, he knows that I know he knows, and we know that you know what we know. We're calling shenanigans. I'm joking.

[JBI]

I am merely suggesting that you are deliberately attempting to mislead the group. Virgil and I are wise to your games. He knows that I know, I know that he knows, he knows that I know he knows, and we know that you know what we know. We're calling shenanigans. I'm joking.

Still, I think the overemphasis on Romanticism must be questioned. It is framed as a classical Idyll. The extensive time he took to edit the poem is clue enough.

Of course, metrically speaking it follows conventional forms - the big shift is actually the emergence of Rousseau in his work at this point (according to my edition, which I won't paste here as I have no time to translate it from Italian and French). The encounter gives him a break with conceptualizing, according to the intro, "Bientôt de la surface de la terre j'élevais mes idées à tous les êtres de la nature, au système universel des choses, à l'Etre incompréhensible qui embrasse tout." - Rousseau.

Sempre caro mi fu quest'ermo colle
E questa siepe che da tanta parte
De'll ultimo orrizonte il guarde esclude.

To me this lonely hill was always precious
And this hedgerow also , where so wide a stretch
Of the extreme horizon's out of sight.

What is the question of lonely? It isn't in the original - Ermo in this case as a suffix gestures toward "deserto" in connotation, simply meaning empty - perhaps a bit of a red-herring. The word "parte" in the second line as well is rather fond, as he uses it elsewhere with warm connotations (Garzanti edition note).


Ma sedendo e mirando interminati
Spazi di là da quella, e sovrumani
Silenzi, e profondissima quiete,
Io nel pensier mi fingo, ove per poco
Il cor non si spaura.

But sitting here and gazing, I find that endless
Spaces beyond that hedge, and more-than-human
Silences, and the deepest peace and quite
Are fashioned in my thought; so much that almost
My heart fills up with fear.

My problem is really with the bottom of this translation - It sort of flips the binary - ove, as a contraction functioning to link the parts. I cannot exactly think of a better way to translate it, because it is functioning on a negative, so rather than say my heart fills up with fear, it reads more like "my heart almost, for not a little, [wouldn't be able] to not be afraid. I can't exactly explain it, but the use of the positive on the verb instead of the negative seems to exaggerate the fearfulness of the scene.





E come il vento
Odo stormir tra queste piante, io quello
Infinito silenzio a questa voce
Vo comparando; e mi sovvien l'eterno,
E le morte stagioni, e la presente
E viva, e'l suon di lei. Così tra questa
Immensità s'annega il pensier mio:
E'l naufragar m'è dolce in questo mare.

Questionably though, the next bit doesn't use a subjunctive tense - it is rather strange, in the sense that he is presenting it as objective, when clearly he is writing of "il pensier mio," his thought. Also curious is in the third last line, his use of the preposition "tra" as apposed to something translating to in - as if he is passing through the infinite, as apposed to the infinite passing through him. The last bit also gestures to his desire to be destroyed within the infinity that is briefly passing him over. It all links back to what he wrote about it in the Zibaldone: "La natura l'abbia posta in noi solamente per la nostra felicità temporale, che non poteva stare senza illusioni." (taken from Garzanti edition note)

To me it seems not so much romantic as it does to be its own character; if I were to contrast it with something, I would be more inclined to compare it to this:

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Than to Tintern Abbey, which to me is the exact opposite poem. What Woodsworth is discussing, to me, is a wholeness found within his encounter with the Abbey and nature, whereas Leopardi seems to go the opposite direction; he is outside of it, and can only look at its enderlessness in contrast to his own limitation - he remarks on the extent that the illusion can sustain him, but he also laments the fact that the hill is merely a trick - my earlier comments toward the seasons and the wind to me suggest a reading based heavily on his use of the preposition "tra" which implies that everything passes through him, and the infinite offers him only a glimpse, implying his own mortality. The wind and the seasons then to me read as aspects of the infinity, as nature itself is, to me in my reading of Leopardi, central to his concept of the "infinity" or the endless.

What Leopardi does for much of his career is bemoan the cruelty of nature, as a bringer of suffering, in that it only affords brief periods that only lead to suffering and death. The hill then, in my reading, marks the viewing point, where he can see things move, and here the sounds, but ultimately, must descend from.

[Virgil]

Backpedal, backpedal, backpedal. You said it was like the "Aeolian Harp metaphor," not the "Aeolian Harp." And, if you meant it was similar in only the most superficial of senses, why wouldn't you say that? Isn't it misleading to start a "refutation" of something by agreeing with them?
Oh for goodness sake Quark, here's my exact post from that response:


I see your point Quark. Yes the wind through the bushes is similar to the Aeolian Harp metaphor, but with Leopardi, nothing the wind is limited in comparison the the scope of what it's set against, the infinte space. In fact he creates a direct compariosn: "pit its [the wind] speech against infinite silence." I think the key to this is evaluating the silence. There is a dichotomy. The wind is earthly, and the vastness of the horizon brings in another dimension, far reaching. The vastness of the horzon and boundless space is slient, "silences,/Deeper than human silence, an unfathomable hush" and that silence is what brings fear. And then there is the mentioning of dead seasons and the immensity that "drowns." It's only one small poem, and the rest will dictate to how similar or different Leopardi is from the Romantics, but i certainly see a distinction so far.
There is nothing in there that suggests i'm agreeing with you that it's roots are Romanticism.


I'm open to that possibility, but no one has given us any reason to believe that the poem is Neo-Classical.
I believe JBI has, though I admit it's sketchy. I don't think there's such a pure definition of what is neo-classical as there is for Romanticism.


Meanwhile, there are many reasons why it's Romantic: its subject has precedents in the Romantic tradition, the reflective lyric is a choice form of the Romantics, the speaker is addressing himself or herself on a "lonesome hill," there's a reference to the Aeolian Harp. All of these are reasons to look at the poem in a Romantic context. If there's something Neo-Classical, bring it forward.
Well, the lyric is rooted in classicism too. Ever read Horace, Sappho, Pindar. Here's Ode 3.13 from Horace:

O Fount Bandusia, brighter than crystal,
worthy of sweet wine and flowers,
tomorrow shalt thou be honoured with
a firstling of the flock whose brow,

with horns just budding, foretokens love
and strife. Alas! in vain; for this
offspring of the sportive flock shall
dye thy cool waters with its own red blood.

Thee the fierce season of the blazing
dog-star cannot touch; to bullocks wearied
of the ploughshare and to the roaming flock
thou dost offer gracious coolness.

Thou, too, shalt be numbered among the
far-famed fountains, through the song I
sing of the oak planted o'er the grotto
whence thy babbling waters leap.
Song, country animals, nature, it could be seen as Romantic, but it's not. It's classical. Just because a poet contemplates nature, doesn't make him Romantic.


And yet there are Romantic poems. It doesn't matter what they intend to do when they sit down. Literary movements are not defined by what the artist is thinking when his or her asss hits the chair. Rather, they come from the subject of the work of art, its attitudes, form, vocabulary, and reception. Many poets believe that they're writing in one tradition when really they'll find their home in another. Two of the six major English Romantic poets (Blake and Byron) wanted to be considered part of earlier literary traditions. Yet they make up the heart of Romanticism now.
I agree there. We're not disputing what romanticism is. We're disputing whether Leopardi's poem has elements of it. While it seems to have elements in it, I think its core is not romantic. But like I said, we are each reading through a prism and this poem is too short to fully classify it.


There is a lot going on this poem. It's not just any one thing.
Agreed.


And, again, I find this an odd reversal from you. You've been shooting down any reading of the poem that you yourself have not already authored.
Why is that odd from me? :lol:


You've clung to one pretty reductive reading of the poem throughout: one where the infinite overwhelms the personal. That's a good reading, but when you turn around and claim that my reading is reductive--that to call it Romantic is to call it bad--then I'm surprised.
I have said we can read it your way too. I'm just not convinced. What do you want me to do, capitulate to make you happy? Look, I respect your opinion and reading. I happen to disagree.


This is not the definition of Romanticism. You've gotten hung up on Wordsworthian emotion, and you've let that define Romanticism for you. A lot of Romantic poetry, though, doesn't have sentimental shepherds or warm and fuzzy descriptions of landscapes. Much of it is cold and abstract. I gave some examples of this earlier. Shelley's "Mount Blanc" is a good one. Nature is not emotionally regenerative here; instead, it's quite terrible or plaintive. Romanticism is about a certain orientation to society and the self. It's about valuing imagination and sympathy over materiality and community. Romantics appreciate inspiration over effort. Many of them do idealize the trees and the hills, but not all of them. We shouldn't make nature appreciation the be-all and end-all of Romanticism.
Sure. If you read my earlier posts on this, I also said that the "infinite silence," "deeper than human silence," seems to suggest something outside of romanticism. It seems to be drained of mystery and spirituality.

[The Comedian]

Forgive me, but I've been away for a few days and would like to participate in this discussion. However, I cannot find a starting point. Are we discussing a single poem? (If so, which one?) or are we just reading the book and posting what comes to mind?

I guess I was under the impression that we were selecting a single poem, discussing it, then selecting another one. If this is so, could someone point me at the correct poem?

Gracias

[Virgil]

Forgive me, but I've been away for a few days and would like to participate in this discussion. However, I cannot find a starting point. Are we discussing a single poem? (If so, which one?) or are we just reading the book and posting what comes to mind?

I guess I was under the impression that we were selecting a single poem, discussing it, then selecting another one. If this is so, could someone point me at the correct poem?

Gracias

Yes, it's probably been going on now for four pages or so. It's "L'Infinito" or in the Grennan translation called "Infinitive."

[The Comedian]

Yes, it's probably been going on now for four pages or so. It's "L'Infinito" or in the Grennan translation called "Infinitive."

Many thanks Virgil.

[The Comedian]

I was taken by surprise at the narrator's peaceful masochism in this poem. He's sitting on this hill, just behind a "hedge that hides the entire horizon, almost" -- then he "pictures" the "boundless spaces away out there".

My first thought was that he could just stand up and look over the hedge -- or peek through, if the hedge was taller than he. Then he could see the bounds all about him. But then again, he calls the hill "lonesome" in the first line, which makes me think that he goes there to be lonesome and afraid, to cull this emotion from selected observations of the landscape and then use these observations as a catalyst to enhance his own dejection and self-imposed isolation. Looking out of the hedge would remove him from this self-created cage he's made around him.

The next few lines pick up the (to my mind self-induced) fear idea, but use sound images to convey it: "silence" "wind" "rustling". The oddest part of the poem, for me, came next when he "pits" these two ideas ("rustling" and "silence") against each other. (Of course, there is no silence; he's just imagining it -- there can't be if there's audible "rustling" in the hedges).

The last few lines, however, brought the poem home to me: the iteration of the progression of the seasons ("dead" because they've past), leading him to the "here and now" -- and the echo of death imagery: "wrecked" "eternity" "drown".

And then the word "easeful" in the last line -- and I felt I could see why he loves this hill: it's a glass of vodka at 10:00am when no one's looking; it's a 15 minute nap at work in your cubical chair while your office door is closed-- the hill is a guilty escape to nothing. And at the same time he recognizes that his coming to the hill is a path to ruin ("wrecked") in the long run.

[JBI]

Lonesome is a mistranslation; should be deserted.

[stlukesguild]

Lonesome is a mistranslation; should be deserted.

Of course JBI's word is law. We will just need to assume that all the translators... most of whom work with the assistance of editors, professors, and interpreters fluent in the language and literature being translated... made the decision to employ the word "Lonesome" or "Lonely" because they were all incompetent.:rolleyes5:

By the way... here is an interesting link which offers multiple translations of L'Infinito ranging from plain prose literal translations to Robert Lowell's creative "imitation":

http://www.textetc.com/workshop/wt-leopardi-1.html

[stlukesguild]

I haven't read through all the posts so far, so excuse me if I repeat someone else... but I thought that this article from Monday's New York Times might be of interest:

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/06/19/books/greatest-after-dante.html

[Quark]

Some questions:


It is framed as a classical Idyll. The extensive time he took to edit the poem is clue enough.

It's been a while since I've read a classical idyll, but I thought the idylls were like Theocritus's pastorals. Is that the comparison you're drawing? When I look up idyll in reference works, I get definitions like this from The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (http://books.google.com/books?id=mp0s9GgrafUC&pg=PA146&dq=abrams+dictionary+of+literary&cd=1#v=onepage&q=idyll&f=false):


a short poem describing an incident of country life in terms of idealized innocence and contentment; or any such episode in a poem or prose work. The term is virtually synonymous with pastoral poem, as in Theocritus' Idylls (3rd century BCE). The title of Tennyson's Idylls of the King (1842–85), a sequence of Arthurian romances, bears little relation to the usual meaning. Browning in Dramatic Idyls (1879–80) uses the term in another sense, as a short self‐contained poem.

and this one from Literary Terms: A Dictionary (http://books.google.com/books?id=dHwQuREpnZcC&pg=PA118&lpg=PA118&dq=%22classical+Idyll%22&source=bl&ots=LA4TBeMIH3&sig=0ROsUV-fUOHqmQIeeqhtUTJafWo&hl=en&ei=OZydS4nWMYSUManNubMC&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CBEQ6AEwBTgK#v=onepage&q=%22classical%20Idyll%22&f=false):


A short lyrical poem depicting rural or pastoral life. Such verse frequently contains conventional, idealized descriptions of the simple life of the shepherd. Begun by Theocritus and followed by many Classical poets, such as Vergil, poetry of this kind has been called pastoral. However, the pastoral idyll differs from the pastoral elegy in that it avoids a mournful tone. [definition continues]

Is this the way you're using the term?


the big shift is actually the emergence of Rousseau in his work at this point

You say "at this point." When exactly is this point? I mean, is there a particular year we can pin this down to?


What is the question of lonely? It isn't in the original - Ermo in this case as a suffix gestures toward "deserto" in connotation, simply meaning empty - perhaps a bit of a red-herring. The word "parte" in the second line as well is rather fond, as he uses it elsewhere with warm connotations (Garzanti edition note).

That's interesting. I've seen it translated as "lonesome" or "solitary." Some translations have extra words inserted in, though. At the beginning of the discussion I was noticing how some books have words like "plaintive" or "sad" attached to the wind, but other don't comment on the wind at all. The translator might be inserting a word to help readers to the mood that they think readers would miss in a purely word-for-word translation. Or, it could just be a mistranslation. I'm not good enough with English, let alone Italian, to know what the case is. If "lonesome" is not there, that does change things.


It all links back to what he wrote about it in the Zibaldone: "La natura l'abbia posta in noi solamente per la nostra felicità temporale, che non poteva stare senza illusioni." (taken from Garzanti edition note)

translation?


Than to Tintern Abbey, which to me is the exact opposite poem.

Neely brought up Tintern Abbey, but I don't think he was trying to equate the two poem's take on nature and the infinite. I think he was just saying that both use their meditations on these issues to find some comfort.

I agree that the take on nature and the infinite is quite different in the poems. There really isn't much to compare between them. I suppose the structure of the poems are similar, although Leopardi's is obviously much shorter. Each start with observations about a particular thought that then opens up into a philosophical discussion before turning back to the particular situation the poet finds himself or herself in. This is pretty common formulation. In fact, M.H. Abrams (major critic of Romanticism--wrote The Mirror and The Lamp) gave this a name: "Greater Romantic Lyric." He explains it in "Structure and Style in the Greater Romantic Lyric":


Some of the poems [Romantic lyrics] are called odes, while the others approach the ode in having lyric magnitude and a serious subject, feeling fully meditated. They present a determinate speaker in a particularized, and usually a localized, outdoor setting, whom we overhear as he carries on, in a fluent vernacular which rises easily to a more formal speech, a sustained colloquy, sometimes with himself or with the outer scene, but more frequently with a silent human auditor, present or absent. The speaker begins with a description of the landscape; an aspect or change of aspect in the landscape evokes a varied but integral process of memory, thought, anticipation, and feeling which remains closely involved with the outer scene. In the course of this meditation the lyric speaker achieves an insight, faces up to a tragic loss, comes to a moral decision, or resolves an emotional problem. Often the poem rounds upon itself to end where it began, at the outer scene, but with an altered mood and deepened understanding which is the result of the intervening meditation

I think the poem resembles the "Greater Romantic Lyric" in structure, at least. Yet there isn't nearly as satisfactory of a resolution or insight offered at the end of the poem. As everyone has been noticing, the impersonal infinite overwhelms the personal, and there's no "resolving" this problem. Instead, there's just an ounce of solace (maybe) in slipping into the "immensity." There's something at the end, but clearly it isn't the fireworks that Wordsworth sets off. When we get into the themes and content of Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey," there probably are more contrasts then parallels, but the structure seems to be similar, at least.

You also mentioned a Wallace Stevens poem, I believe. But I'm not touching that with a twenty-foot pole. Trying to explicate a Wallace Stevens poem is like opening up a can of worms. I'll stick to the Leopardi.


then use these observations as a catalyst to enhance his own dejection and self-imposed isolation. Looking out of the hedge would remove him from this self-created cage he's made around him.

I love that we have eight different conversations going on at once. I'm not being sarcastic, I do like all the posts, but it's a bit much to try to respond to them all. There's the Romanticism/Classicism conversation, the nature/infinite discussion, the translation discussion, the commentary on art discussion, and now the psychological discussion. Is he self-imposing isolation to "enhance his own dejection?" Before, I think Neely was saying that this the hill is about comforting himself from painful thought (I could be mistaking Neely's point). Now, it's being suggested that the hill is about self-inflicted pain. I don't know which is a better reading.


The oddest part of the poem, for me, came next when he "pits" these two ideas ("rustling" and "silence") against each other.

What confused me about that is I'm unclear as to whether he's contrasting or equating those two. Some translations say "pits" against, but other say "compare." The two ideas are seemingly contrasting, but the string of and-phrases makes them seem similar. When I first read the poem, I read this as a dialectical exchange--two opposites productively playing off one another. But, now it seems more ambiguous.

The last few lines, however, brought the poem home to me: the iteration of the progression of the seasons ("dead" because they've past), leading him to the "here and now" -- and the echo of death imagery: "wrecked" "eternity" "drown".


this article from Monday's New York Times

You mean June 19th 1983's Monday. You're reaching way back for this one stlukes. It's got some good biographical details, though.

[JBI]

Lonesome is a mistranslation; should be deserted.

Of course JBI's word is law. We will just need to assume that all the translators... most of whom work with the assistance of editors, professors, and interpreters fluent in the language and literature being translated... made the decision to employ the word "Lonesome" or "Lonely" because they were all incompetent.:rolleyes5:

By the way... here is an interesting link which offers multiple translations of L'Infinito ranging from plain prose literal translations to Robert Lowell's creative "imitation":

http://www.textetc.com/workshop/wt-leopardi-1.html

The above site gives three, lonely, solitary, hermit's, etc, and even the "pushed off by itself". It doesn't matter though, I didn't come up with my translation - it's in the note within my book, that kind of makes it clear. The word itself is not common, and if you google.it it, you'll realize it only really comes up in this poem, or in a few cases, as parodied versions of the poem.

[JBI]

Sorry didn't make it clear; it was at this point that he began reading Rousseau as well as Pascal, which leaks directly into the poem. Until now he had only read classic and religious works for the most part, but by the time he got ill, he made an about face.

My link arguably to the classical is in that he fashions the poem as a moment of country beauty in a rather plain form, keeping with the Idyll convention, and although he does not come off as happy or Bucolic, there is still the resonance of pastoral elements.

The pastoral world of the idyll automatically functions with a background of the real, as essentially none of its poets were shepherds, or farmers, only imaginers who use the zone to portray a purer life-form free of the corruption of contemporary life (usually implying a satirical edge in the Roman sense of the genre). What Leopardi has done though is to translate the notions into a new form, making instead of the rustic life the subject of appeal, nature, and life outside of its infinity the scorned.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I love that we have eight different conversations going on at once. I'm not being sarcastic, I do like all the posts, but it's a bit much to try to respond to them all. There's the Romanticism/Classicism conversation, the nature/infinite discussion, the translation discussion, the commentary on art discussion, and now the psychological discussion.

Yes, it is quite interesting, there is a lot going off at once, different threads of thought and it is only the first poem – and a small one at that!


Than to Tintern Abbey, which to me is the exact opposite poem.


Neely brought up Tintern Abbey, but I don't think he was trying to equate the two poem's take on nature and the infinite. I think he was just saying that both use their meditations on these issues to find some comfort.

Yes, yes thank you. I almost see this poem as the exact opposite of “Tintern Abbey” when it comes down to the things that really matter, the psychological aspect of the poem and the internal motives of the narrator etc, etc. But where it is similar (for me) is really just in the minor, peripheral aspect of coming to a particular place you have been before in nature. Hence the explicit instance of naming “this lonely hill” “this hedgerow” “that hedge” as in totally emphasising that it is here, this very spot and nowhere else that gives pleasure, but, for totally differing reasons. Wordsworth emphasises the same in “these waters” “these steep and lofty cliffs” “this dark sycamore” and obviously in the naming of the poem so accurately with its full title being: "Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey on revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour, July 13, 1798.” I mean this is written to such a degree of accuracy, like you would date a wedding anniversary or some momentous event, not the fact that he is sat under some bush, so that it is clear that it is this particular place that really matters to him for whatever reason. That was all really.

For me still, the importance of why in our poem the narrator figure comes to the hill is not because of the hill, rather it could be anything as I think Comedian suggested, but that it happens to help block out his internal struggles even if just for a moment. It offers a temporary respite. I still think that there is something to be taken from Leopardi's comments here:

...at times the spirit...desires a view which is in certain ways restricted and confined... The reason is...the desire for the infinite, because in those circumstances the imagination goes to work instead of the eyesight, and fantasy takes the place of what is real. The spirit imagines for itself what it cannot see, what that tree, that hedge, that tower hides from it, and goes wandering in an imaginary space, and pictures things it would not be able to if its sight extended everywhere, because the real would exclude the imaginary. Hence the pleasure which I always used to experience as a child, and do even now, in seeking the sky etc. Though a window, a doorway...

The narrator/Leopardi figure is using this particular surroundings because it fits perfectly to stir his imagination which ultimately blocks out what is real – fear or death, times passing or whatever...Certainly, there is more going off in this poem (there always is) but this would be my main way of viewing the piece at this time, though it is something that I am still musing on slowly, between “real” life...

In terms of connecting this to the sublime, this doesn’t really work for me, though perhaps it is just a different function of the sublime. I don’t see that he is particularly awestruck by his surroundings or that they inspire thoughts of God or death or creation or whatever, I think such thoughts are already there within him brooding away. I just think that he uses this particular layout of the land here, the way the hedge blocks the view etc, in order to take the pain of reality away. :)

[OrphanPip]

"Bientôt de la surface de la terre j'élevais mes idées à tous les êtres de la nature, au système universel des choses, à l'Etre incompréhensible qui embrasse tout." - Rousseau.

An attempted translation of the Rousseau quote by me:

Soon, from the surface of the ground I'll lift up my ideas to all the beings of nature, an universal system of things, to an incomprehensible Being that encompasses/embraces/grasps all.



Than to Tintern Abbey, which to me is the exact opposite poem. What Woodsworth is discussing, to me, is a wholeness found within his encounter with the Abbey and nature, whereas Leopardi seems to go the opposite direction; he is outside of it, and can only look at its enderlessness in contrast to his own limitation - he remarks on the extent that the illusion can sustain him, but he also laments the fact that the hill is merely a trick - my earlier comments toward the seasons and the wind to me suggest a reading based heavily on his use of the preposition "tra" which implies that everything passes through him, and the infinite offers him only a glimpse, implying his own mortality. The wind and the seasons then to me read as aspects of the infinity, as nature itself is, to me in my reading of Leopardi, central to his concept of the "infinity" or the endless.

What Leopardi does for much of his career is bemoan the cruelty of nature, as a bringer of suffering, in that it only affords brief periods that only lead to suffering and death. The hill then, in my reading, marks the viewing point, where he can see things move, and here the sounds, but ultimately, must descend from.

I find the influence of Rousseau intriguing. That quote from Rousseau seems to be exploring feelings about human impressions of nature and reality in conflict with an abstract concept of perfect, idealized knowledge embodied in a sort of divine "Being" that is ultimately "incomprehensible."

Leopardi does seem to be expressing a similar frustration with his own limitations, and that feeling of almost grasping something greater but having it slip away. However, Leopardi comes off as so much more depressing and negative than Rousseau, who almost seems like he thinks himself capable of understanding and reaching what is incomprehensible.

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with the multiple directions the discussions are taking at the moment :p.

[Paulclem]

I don't know. You stop watching the thread for one night and you pop in a million posts! :D

I'll see if I can catch up.

[Paulclem]

Yes, it is quite interesting, there is a lot going off at once, different threads of thought and it is only the first poem – and a small one at that!





Yes, yes thank you. I almost see this poem as the exact opposite of “Tintern Abbey” when it comes down to the things that really matter, the psychological aspect of the poem and the internal motives of the narrator etc, etc. But where it is similar (for me) is really just in the minor, peripheral aspect of coming to a particular place you have been before in nature. Hence the explicit instance of naming “this lonely hill” “this hedgerow” “that hedge” as in totally emphasising that it is here, this very spot and nowhere else that gives pleasure, but, for totally differing reasons. Wordsworth emphasises the same in “these waters” “these steep and lofty cliffs” “this dark sycamore” and obviously in the naming of the poem so accurately with its full title being: "Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey on revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour, July 13, 1798.” I mean this is written to such a degree of accuracy, like you would date a wedding anniversary or some momentous event, not the fact that he is sat under some bush, so that it is clear that it is this particular place that really matters to him for whatever reason. That was all really.

For me still, the importance of why in our poem the narrator figure comes to the hill is not because of the hill, rather it could be anything as I think Comedian suggested, but that it happens to help block out his internal struggles even if just for a moment. It offers a temporary respite. I still think that there is something to be taken from Leopardi's comments here:

...at times the spirit...desires a view which is in certain ways restricted and confined... The reason is...the desire for the infinite, because in those circumstances the imagination goes to work instead of the eyesight, and fantasy takes the place of what is real. The spirit imagines for itself what it cannot see, what that tree, that hedge, that tower hides from it, and goes wandering in an imaginary space, and pictures things it would not be able to if its sight extended everywhere, because the real would exclude the imaginary. Hence the pleasure which I always used to experience as a child, and do even now, in seeking the sky etc. Though a window, a doorway...

The narrator/Leopardi figure is using this particular surroundings because it fits perfectly to stir his imagination which ultimately blocks out what is real – fear or death, times passing or whatever...Certainly, there is more going off in this poem (there always is) but this would be my main way of viewing the piece at this time, though it is something that I am still musing on slowly, between “real” life...

In terms of connecting this to the sublime, this doesn’t really work for me, though perhaps it is just a different function of the sublime. I don’t see that he is particularly awestruck by his surroundings or that they inspire thoughts of God or death or creation or whatever, I think such thoughts are already there within him brooding away. I just think that he uses this particular layout of the land here, the way the hedge blocks the view etc, in order to take the pain of reality away. :)

Here's my reading of it.

The hill and hedgerow are precious - not as a sop to pain, but a positive place - a place to get someting out of rather than a refuge from. It is lonely/ deserted allowing this process to take place.

Does he contemplate infinity by blocking out the far horizon because it is just not " big" enough? His mind/meditation is better at contemplating this immensity/ God though it is scary - the huge infinite and the small finite contrasted. His evocation of fear suggests God to me, but a contmplation of infinity may well profduce such a feeling. I think the "more than human silences" nails that for me - though he doesn't refer to God directly. Perhaps he doesn't need to. I get the feeling that the "infinite silence" is an active silence - a chosen silence, and this supports the idea of God.

He then goes on to compare the rustling wind, infinite silence, the Eternal, past and present. His contemplation of these results in a delight which seems to come from being drowned in this awareness which is a super-normal perception. The use of drowning retains his fear and fragility in this thought sea.

My impression from the themes within it are that it is essentially a Romantic poem - I immediately realled Shelley and Wordsworth with the themes of contemplation/ imagination, the natural world - Neely's point about a specific place etc.

I appreciate the other conversations going on and I think there are a lot of great points being made.

The Infinite - perhaps so named because of the number of posts that could be made about it. :D

[mortalterror]

If we take this poem literally, then the hill is an actual place in Recanati, Italy and we can know exactly what the hill, trees, bushes, and seas look like because someone has probably taken a picture from the spot Leopardi writes about. Acting under this assumption I did a little googling and came up with this site. http://www.lovemarche.com/recanati.htm Scroll down to about the middle of the page just after the text "From here a marked distance leads to Monte Tabor, known as the hill of "l'Infinito" from which a charming panorama can be admired."

[LitNetIsGreat]

I appreciate the other conversations going on and I think there are a lot of great points being made.

Yes absolutely. For me it doesn't matter that we can't really get to every point - it's just fine to drift with a few thoughts and not to try to cover and counter-cover every post - though I always religiously read what others say, I do not, or cannot really respond to every thought; but I don’t think that’s a problem, it doesn’t worry me.

The Infinite - perhaps so named because of the number of posts that could be made about it.
:smilielol5:

If we take this poem literally, then the hill is an actual place in Recanati, Italy and we can know exactly what the hill, trees, bushes, and seas look like because someone has probably taken a picture from the spot Leopardi writes about. Acting under this assumption I did a little googling and came up with this site. http://www.lovemarche.com/recanati.htm Scroll down to about the middle of the page just after the text "From here a marked distance leads to Monte Tabor, known as the hill of "l'Infinito" from which a charming panorama can be admired."

Great find. Oh, god I need to go to Italy as part of a huge six month continental tour. :mad2:

[Virgil]

That is a great find Mortal!

Have we discussed this poem to death or shall we continue to explore the infinite? :lol:

Any thoughts on the last line? Why does his fear transition to delight or ease, depending on the translation?

[JBI]

If we take this poem literally, then the hill is an actual place in Recanati, Italy and we can know exactly what the hill, trees, bushes, and seas look like because someone has probably taken a picture from the spot Leopardi writes about. Acting under this assumption I did a little googling and came up with this site. http://www.lovemarche.com/recanati.htm Scroll down to about the middle of the page just after the text "From here a marked distance leads to Monte Tabor, known as the hill of "l'Infinito" from which a charming panorama can be admired."

To me that sounds a lot like "Romeo and Juliet's house" in Verona, or any other number of associations made for tourism. As it is, I don't think there really is this "hill" per-say, and I took it to be a vehicle. As it is, this is probably the most popular 19th century Italian poem from what I can gather, so labeling the hill creates a pretty simple landmark - and the view is nice too, so that helps as well.

[Quark]

But where it is similar (for me) is really just in the minor, peripheral aspect of coming to a particular place you have been before in nature. Hence the explicit instance of naming “this lonely hill” “this hedgerow” “that hedge” as in totally emphasising that it is here, this very spot and nowhere else that gives pleasure, but, for totally differing reasons. Wordsworth emphasises the same in “these waters” “these steep and lofty cliffs” “this dark sycamore”

If we take this poem literally, then the hill is an actual place in Recanati, Italy

To me that sounds a lot like "Romeo and Juliet's house" in Verona, or any other number of associations made for tourism. As it is, I don't think there really is this "hill" per-say, and I took it to be a vehicle.

While I share a little bit of JBI's skepticism, I like the idea of an actual hill that the speaker is pointing to when he points to the hill and "this hedgerow" in the poem. I think Leopardi is trying to create a tension between the particular and the universal in the poem by--as Neely observes--using demonstratives to locate the hill and hedge. It's "this" or "that" hill and hedge, not just any hill and hedge. They contrast with the nameless, featureless infinite beyond. I like the idea that the hill is a real one, then, because it makes it even more particularized.


Soon, from the surface of the ground I'll lift up my ideas to all the beings of nature, an universal system of things, to an incomprehensible Being that encompasses/embraces/grasps all.

That makes the poem sound more hopeful. It makes it sound like the incomprehensible being is silent in the poem because it's "incomprehensible," not because it isn't there.


The hill and hedgerow are precious - not as a sop to pain, but a positive place - a place to get someting out of rather than a refuge from. It is lonely/ deserted allowing this process to take place.

I agree with you and JBI that the hill is a place of vision and investigation, but there's something to what Neely is saying, too. It's both a hill that allows for vision and a lone, protected place where the speaker can shield himself or herself. The hedge blocks vision, ultimately. And the hill is a place where the speaker can distance himself from society. That makes the setting as much a shelter as it is exposed. Maybe we could say that the hill is psychologically sheltering while being philosophically stimulating.


His evocation of fear suggests God to me, but a contmplation of infinity may well profduce such a feeling. I think the "more than human silences" nails that for me - though he doesn't refer to God directly. Perhaps he doesn't need to. I get the feeling that the "infinite silence" is an active silence - a chosen silence, and this supports the idea of God.

When you say it's an "active" silence, who is the actor you're referring to? Is it God who is "choos[ing]" the silence? Or, is it the speaker?

As for the word "fear," I think it could go either way. You're right that it could indicate fear and trembling in encountering the divine. But, it also could indicate that the divine doesn't exist. The silence could be an empty one. Interpretations of the words "fear" and "silence" in this poem balance on a knife's edge, and it seems like they could go just as easily one way as the other.

[Paulclem]

When you say it's an "active" silence, who is the actor you're referring to? Is it God who is "choos[ing]" the silence? Or, is it the speaker?

As for the word "fear," I think it could go either way. You're right that it could indicate fear and trembling in encountering the divine. But, it also could indicate that the divine doesn't exist. The silence could be an empty one. Interpretations of the words "fear" and "silence" in this poem balance on a knife's edge, and it seems like they could go just as easily one way as the other.

It is ambiguous but on balance I'd go with an actively silent God, which could also account for the fear factor. I take your pont about infinity without God also producing fear. In the end though we don't have terror - we have a little fear sprinkled with delight.

[mayneverhave]

Is it necessary for there to be an actual hill? Is Lycidas any less of a poem because Milton wasn't good friends with Edward King?

[Paulclem]

Is it necessary for there to be an actual hill? Is Lycidas any less of a poem because Milton wasn't good friends with Edward King?

No, but it does serve a purpose in estabishing a here and now feeling of reality which contrasts with the idea of eternity - though this is only according to some readings such as Neely's and others.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Is it necessary for there to be an actual hill? Is Lycidas any less of a poem because Milton wasn't good friends with Edward King?


No, but it does serve a purpose in estabishing a here and now feeling of reality which contrasts with the idea of eternity - though this is only according to some readings such as Neely's and others.

Yes, the actual hill is important for me in the context of the poem. I get the impression that for whatever reason the narrator comes to that particular hill and not just a random place in the country. It is "his spot" if you like. In terms of if the tourist spot was the actual hill or not of course doesn't matter, I'm talking about within the context of the poem, it is one place he seems to go to, his little retreat. The difference being that the poem doesn't say "a" hill, it says "this" hill and the fact that it does so in the same way three times in such a short poem suggests to me that it is potentially significant.

[Virgil]

When you say it's an "active" silence, who is the actor you're referring to? Is it God who is "choos[ing]" the silence? Or, is it the speaker?

As for the word "fear," I think it could go either way. You're right that it could indicate fear and trembling in encountering the divine. But, it also could indicate that the divine doesn't exist. The silence could be an empty one. Interpretations of the words "fear" and "silence" in this poem balance on a knife's edge, and it seems like they could go just as easily one way as the other.

It is ambiguous but on balance I'd go with an actively silent God, which could also account for the fear factor. I take your pont about infinity without God also producing fear. In the end though we don't have terror - we have a little fear sprinkled with delight.

You know I think the difference in readings have to do with the translation one is using. The Nichols translation does make it sound like the presence of the numinous while the Grennan translation suggests an emptiness, a vacuum. Compare this section:

Nichols:

...And as I hear
The wind rustle among the leaves, I set
That infinite silence up against this voice,
Comparing them; and I recall the eternal,
And the dead seasons, and the present one
Alive, and all the sound of it. And so
In this immensity my thought is drowned:

Grennan:

...And hearing the wind
Rush rustling through these bushes,
I pit its speech against infinite silence--
And a notion of eternity floats to my mind,
And the dead seasons, and the season
Beating here and now, and the sound of it. So,
In this immensity my thoughts all drown;

I can see how the Nichols translation suggests Romanticism. I've been supporting my anti Romantic reading solely based on the Grennan. And frankly as I compare the Italian, while the Grennan is more poetic, I don't think it's as faithful to the original Italian.

I may owe Quark an apology. The Nichols translation does seem like the poem is within the Romantic tradition, and if the Nichols is closer to the Italian, then the poem is within the Romantic tradition.

[Quark]

In the end though we don't have terror - we have a little fear sprinkled with delight.

Yes, it is fear mixed with delight. I suppose we'll each have to decide what's the proportion between them.


Is it necessary for there to be an actual hill? Is Lycidas any less of a poem because Milton wasn't good friends with Edward King?

Yes and no. I like that the hill is actual because it highlights the tension between the infinite and the particular. But, at the same time, the hill needs to be nondescript enough to slide into the background when the speaker begins his or her contemplation of the infinite. If we got too caught up with the hill itself, we might lose sight of the philosophical beyond that the speaker conjures up. Leopardi does well in the poem to make the hill particular enough, but not too much so.


You know I think the difference in readings have to do with the translation one is using.

Yeah, it's difficult working with such a short and subtle poem in translation. As JBI has pointed out, some words in these translations don't even correspond with anything in the Italian. That makes it even more difficult to interpret the finer points of this poem--like what the speaker's "fear" consists of or what the hill and hedge mean. One probably can't so cavalierly call it Romantic or Neo-Classical as I was trying to do. It's probably best to move more cautiously with this poem (particularly, when the words keep changing).


Any thoughts on the last line? Why does his fear transition to delight or ease, depending on the translation?

That's a good question. It's also a tough question. Maybe we should break it down. First of all, what is he slipping into? What is the immensity? Is it the same as the infinite? Is something added to infinite by the meditation he has on "the season now" and "the leaves?" Before I say something stupid, I'd like to know whether there's a consensus on what the "immensity" is.


Have we discussed this poem to death or shall we continue to explore the infinite? :lol:

Funny. Infinity really is a good symbol for this discussion. The number of posts keeps going up, but we never seem to be anywhere near an end. It will have to stop at some point, though. Do you want to take the next poem?

[Paulclem]

Which poem do you want to do? I'm quite happy to do any.

[quasimodo1]

How about "Saturday in the Village"? ... Giacomo Leopardi



from Leopardi, Selected Poems
translated by Eamon Grennan
from Translator's Introduction, "Attempts and Preludes"
p.xxi

{The vagaries of translation are infinite: it all boils down to choices, to chosen solutions to essentially insoluble problems. What is asked of the responsible translator, I imagine, is a willingness to live a double life, to be committed in equal measure to two realities-- the original poem, in its extraordinarily complex, integrated, and delicately orchestrated network of connections, and the poem the translator wants to write in his or her own language, which will be slowly pieced together until, with all its limitations, it possesses of life as equal to the whole life of the original as, for he moment, seems possible. In the end-- as has been said about poems in general-- a translation is "not finished but abandoned." To a French admirer who, in 1836, described him as "le poete de tous les hommes qui sentent," Leopardi replied: "je n'ai jamais fait d'ouvrgae, j'ai fait seulement des essais en comptant toujous preluder." Whatever about his own poems, it is surely the case that any translations of them can be no more than "attempts" and "preludes," which is how I would see the following versions (versions, I should add, which have already undergone some revisions for this American edition). …….. Since human existence itself is often felt to be irremediably dualistic, the task of translation, as I have described it above, may become (playfully or seriously) its own revealing metaphor for the divided nature of our lives.}

[LitNetIsGreat]

How about "Saturday in the Village"? ... Giacomo Leopardi

Yes, why not?

[Paulclem]

Yes, why not?

So it's "Saturday in the Village" is it.

Have you seen the Yorkist version Neely?

Sat'di in t' village.

Good job wee'v me an' thee t' translate it tha nos. Else wi'd bi fair stuck 'n all.
Just 'ow wud wi manage?

:D

[quasimodo1]

from Leopardi, Selected Poems
translated by Eamon Grennan

SATURDAY IN THE VILLAGE

Just at that hour when the sun is setting,
The young girl comes in from the fields
With an armful of fresh grass
And a little bunch of violets and wild roses
To bind in her hair
And pin at her breast
Tomorrow, as she does every Sunday.
On her own front steps the old woman
Sits spinning with her neighbors,
Facing the sun as it sinks in the west.
She prattles on about the good old days
When she too would dress up for Sunday.
And how-- still quick and trim--
She'd dance the evening away
With all those boyfriends she had
In her shining youth. Already
Dusk is thickening the air,
The sky turns deep blue, shadows
Stretch from the hills and tilting roofs
In the blanched light of the rising moon.
And now the pealing bell tells us
Tomorrow is Sunday.
And at that sound you'd say
The heart took comfort.
Dashing all over the little piazza
And shouting their heads off,
A flock of boys makes a happy racket,
While the farmhand goes home whistling
To his bit of supper,
Thinking about his day of rest.
{first stanza}

[Paulclem]

from Leopardi, Selected Poems
translated by Eamon Grennan

SATURDAY IN THE VILLAGE

Just at that hour when the sun is setting,
The young girl comes in from the fields
With an armful of fresh grass
And a little bunch of violets and wild roses
To bind in her hair
And pin at her breast
Tomorrow, as she does every Sunday.
On her own front steps the old woman
Sits spinning with her neighbors,
Facing the sun as it sinks in the west.
She prattles on about the good old days
When she too would dress up for Sunday.
And how-- still quick and trim--
She'd dance the evening away
With all those boyfriends she had
In her shining youth. Already
Dusk is thickening the air,
The sky turns deep blue, shadows
Stretch from the hills and tilting roofs
In the blanched light of the rising moon.
And now the pealing bell tells us
Tomorrow is Sunday.
And at that sound you'd say
The heart took comfort.
Dashing all over the little piazza
And shouting their heads off,
A flock of boys makes a happy racket,
While the farmhand goes home whistling
To his bit of supper,
Thinking about his day of rest.
{first stanza}

This is a good choice Quasimodo. The Nichols translation is slightly different.

The country girl is coming from the fields
Before the sun has set.
Her head is balancing trussed hay, her hand
A bunch of blooms, the rose, the violet,
Which she intends to put
(Tomorrow's holy day
Demands such great display) on breast and hair.
With all her neigbours near
The old crone settles on the steps to spin,
Facing the quarter where the sun goes down;
She spins the story of her own best days,
Of dressing as she did for holy days,
Lovely and lively then.
And dancing all the night away with those
Who were companions of her happy time.
The air begins to gloom,
Sky turns a deeper blue, the shades return
That hills and roofs project
Against the whiteness of the risen moon.
The bell shrills out to signal
The coming holy day
And at that sound you'd say
The heart was comforted.
The small boys crowd arnd shout
Throughout the tiny square,
They crowd and leap about,
They leap about and cheer.
Meanwhile returning to his frugal meal
The whistling labourer
Thinks happily about his day of rest.

[quasimodo1]

I'm comparing the two versions; is there a third translation amongst the texts used here? {The Leopardi Palace}

The Leopardi Palace in Recanati faces the square which takes it’s name from the famous poem “Saturday In The Village”. http://www.giacomoleopardi.it/engl/palazzo.htm

[Virgil]

Great! Quasi is one who takes the bull by the horns. :wink5: I'll get reading it tonight.

[Virgil]

Hmm, no on e has started. So let me start. :cornut:

I really enjoyed this poem, very lovely. Though the poem has Saturday in its title it is more about Sunday than Saturday. Leopardi creates a wonderful anticipation for a Sunday sabbath, a day of rest, with the closing of Saturday chores: the young woman concluding her farm duties, the carpenter working late, the sun setting. The heart of the poem, the thematic core is this:

And now the peeling bell tells us
Tomorrow is Sunday,
And at that sound you'd say
The heart took comfort.
ll 21-24.

There's more goining on but I'll leave it at that for now.

I must say that the Grennan translation did a horrid job with this line: "Everybody going back in his mind/To the daily grind." "To the daily grind?" Gosd what an awful cliche.

[Paulclem]

Thanks Virgil for getting us going. I must say I like the Nichols version better in the exract. I can't comment on the translation process, but it seems more sucessful as a poem.

The flavour I'm getting in the poem is an abundance of death motifs that lie within he images.

The old crone settles on the steps to spin,
Facing the quarter where the sun goes down

For example we move from the young girl to the old crone - her future, and the crone is facing her sun going down. I get this through the poem - or am I just being morbid? :lol:

[LitNetIsGreat]

Yes I like the Nichols version of this poem too. I've not had time to comment on the poem yet as I've been very busy all day back stage of the Crucible and Lyceum theatres, meeting actors, directors and executives etc, etc - such a bore, ha, ha, though I do like it I think it is a very subtle and evocative piece. I promise I'll share some thoughts late tomorrow or Sunday when I have the time. :) Good choice of second poem.

Edit: Oh, no I don't think you are being morbid necessarily. For me he clearly evokes the passing of time changing from the youth to the older figure, but I don't find it too dark as I recall (the book is downstairs?) rather a sort of subtle knowing. I like how there is no real central character in this poem, what we are presented with are groups of individuals from different perspectives building to create a picture as a whole. Must go.

[Virgil]

Thanks Virgil for getting us going. I must say I like the Nichols version better in the exract. I can't comment on the translation process, but it seems more sucessful as a poem.

The flavour I'm getting in the poem is an abundance of death motifs that lie within he images.

The old crone settles on the steps to spin,
Facing the quarter where the sun goes down

For example we move from the young girl to the old crone - her future, and the crone is facing her sun going down. I get this through the poem - or am I just being morbid? :lol:

Thanks Paul. It seems like the Nichols is more accurate for sure. To be honest, I can't say i see the death motifs, at least not in this Grennan translation, unless one is seeing the setting sun and the closing of the day as a suggestion of death. I do see the contrast between young and old (young girl/old woman, the young lad/carpenter) . I was eventually going to mention that. I also see the contrast between the industrious and those that dally about. The young girl has been working in the fields and the carpenter is hard at work, while the old woman is just hanging out and bull sh*tting and the boy is "larking about." Interesting how it's the young girl and the older man that are industrious and their opposites that are indolent.

There is a tremendous scope here, from youth to age, from male to female, from laboring to playing, from retrospecting to future hopes. He's capturing the full extent of life.

Perhaps you're right. This scope does suggest a passing of time, and generational transitions, and so death. The work of life has been done, and next will come the heavenly peace, suggested of Sunday.

But that second to last stanza does state a future work week, and not the passing of life. I can see how death is suggested, but it's really muted, and the panorama of life goes on.

[Wilde woman]

Would it be possible for quasimodo or someone else to post the poem in its original Italian? I'd be interested in seeing/commenting on it.

[Virgil]

Would it be possible for quasimodo or someone else to post the poem in its original Italian? I'd be interested in seeing/commenting on it.

Ask and you shall have. The Italian is on line. I bet all his poems in Italian are on line given that he published 200 years ago and there are no copywrite laws. Here's the Italian:


"Il sabato del villaggio"
by Giacomo Leopardi

La donzelletta vien dalla campagna
in sul calar del sole,
col suo fascio dell'erba; e reca in mano
un mazzolin di rose e viole,
onde, siccome suole, ornare ella si appresta
dimani, al dí di festa, il petto e il crine.
Siede con le vicine
su la scala a filar la vecchierella,
incontro là dove si perde il giorno;
e novellando vien del suo buon tempo,
quando ai dí della festa ella si ornava,
ed ancor sana e snella
solea danzar la sera intra di quei
ch'ebbe compagni nell'età piú bella.
Già tutta l'aria imbruna,
torna azzurro il sereno, e tornan l'ombre
giú da' colli e da' tetti,
al biancheggiar della recente luna.
Or la squilla dà segno
della festa che viene;
ed a quel suon diresti
che il cor si riconforta.
I fanciulli gridando
su la piazzuola in frotta,
e qua e là saltando,
fanno un lieto romore;
e intanto riede alla sua parca mensa,
fischiando, il zappatore,
e seco pensa al dí del suo riposo.

Poi quando intorno è spenta ogni altra face,
e tutto l'altro tace,
odi il martel picchiare, odi la sega
del legnaiuol, che veglia
nella chiusa bottega alla lucerna,
e s'affretta, e s'adopra
di fornir l'opra anzi al chiarir dell'alba.

Questo di sette è il più gradito giorno,
pien di speme e di gioia:
diman tristezza e noia
recheran l'ore, ed al travaglio usato
ciascuno in suo pensier farà ritorno.

Garzoncello scherzoso,
cotesta età fiorita
è come un giorno d'allegrezza pieno,
giorno chiaro, sereno,
che precorre alla festa di tua vita.
Godi, fanciullo mio; stato soave,
stagion lieta è cotesta.
Altro dirti non vo'; ma la tua festa
ch'anco tardi a venir non ti sia grave.
http://www.filosofico.net/leopardidifestaa.htm

Also, you can hear it read on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2Tih-bjIGg

[quasimodo1]

"Already
Dusk is thickening the air,
The sky turns deep blue, shadows
Stretch from the hills and tilting roofs
In the blanched light of the rising moon." This poem is all about an evening's ambience and atmosphere; Leopardi's usual inclusion of suffering and death and indifferent, hostile nature are absent. The poem, like the relief of a relaxed Saturday evening, is a break from Leopardi's heavier observations. In my reading, the Nichols version lacks the clarity of Grennon's translation. "Of all the seven days in the week
This one gets the warmest welcome,
Full of hope, as it is, and joy.
Tomorrow the hours will be leaden
With emptiness and melancholy." As Virgil suggests, themes of death are muted; the backround sounds and sights of the village at peace are presented and the only dark themes are for other days of the week.

[Virgil]

"Already
Dusk is thickening the air,
The sky turns deep blue, shadows
Stretch from the hills and tilting roofs
In the blanched light of the rising moon." This poem is all about an evening's ambience and atmosphere; Leopardi's usual inclusion of suffering and death and indifferent, hostile nature are absent. The poem, like the relief of a relaxed Saturday evening, is a break from Leopardi's heavier observations. In my reading, the Nichols version lacks the clarity of Grennon's translation. "Of all the seven days in the week
This one gets the warmest welcome,
Full of hope, as it is, and joy.
Tomorrow the hours will be leaden
With emptiness and melancholy." As Virgil suggests, themes of death are muted; the backround sounds and sights of the village at peace are presented and the only dark themes are for other days of the week.

I agree with most of the things you say there. The one thing I might quibble over is whether the poem is really about Saturday night. Though it's set on Saturday I think it's real subject is Sunday, as most things are projecting for the next day.

[quasimodo1]

The poem does project to the next day; no disagreement there. My take on the poem is that Leopardi is giving us a "you are there" experience for Recanati village as it takes a deep breath before resuming duty.

[Virgil]

The poem does project to the next day; no disagreement there. My take on the poem is that Leopardi is giving us a "you are there" experience for Recanati village as it takes a deep breath before resuming duty.

Agreed, and it's a beautifully done "you are there" experience. I loved this poem.

[Lynne50]

I didn't get a strong 'death motif' in this poem, only a transition from youth to maturity. I took 'Saturday to mean youth and 'Sunday to mean maturity. It was in the last line, that I think Leopardi was telling us that, while in our youth we are always hoping get to adulthood too fast. We can't wait until we become adults and then we think we have it all.

...I'll say no more, only
Don't fret if your Sunday
Seems like a long time coming.

I think Leopardi is telling the youth of the day, don't grow up too fast.

[Lynne50]

I don't want to rush our discussion of Saturday in the Village but maybe our next poem could be Sunday Evening. It seems like it may be a continuation of Leopardi's theme from the first poem. Not sure why it comes so much later in the collection.

I did very much like Saturday in the Village It made you feel like you were right there with the townspeople, almost like a little excerpt from a Brueghel painting.

[Quark]

I don't want to rush our discussion of Saturday in the Village but maybe our next poem could be Sunday Evening.

Makes sense, but don't go through this one too quickly. I'd like to get a chance to post on the poem. This weekend I should have some time to write, so wait a couple of days before moving on.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I take this part as a key passage with the rise of the presence of the narrator in the last part of the poem. All of the earlier activity and the blending of sound and colour is all well and good, but for me the central crux is in the knowing sense of the narrator at the close.

I like the way Leopardi (through Nichols) has captured the sense of activity, like I say, both in sound and colour from the activity of the various types of people, the old and the young, the ardent labourer and the carefree spirit of youth, as well as the “old crone” who looks back on her younger days with pride. I like how the use of sound represented in the poem is emphasised - the shrilling of the bell, the hammer and saw of the carpenter and the shouts and cheers of the boys in play – it all helps to add to the whole picture of anticipation for the Sunday effectively (though perhaps symbolic of life in general?). However for me it is the shadow of the narrator who tells the boy to “enjoy” the “happy state” and the “pleasant lull” at the close who is most important. “I say no more” he then adds, which suggests to me that we are then forced to fill in the blanks with “for it will not last”.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t particularly see the poem as “dark” as such, maybe something that “just is” but neither I am content to see this poem simply as a pleasant sketch of village life.

[Wilde woman]

Thanks Virgil, for the Italian! I have to agree with you that the Nichols version is more accurate and, for me, a more successful poem.

I'm very drawn to the labourer returning home, and how his thoughts about the Sabbath contrast so sharply with the others'. Anybody else sense a bit of irony there? To me, it seems like an interesting note on which to end the stanza.

Also, I was really struck by the lines about the setting sun and the village being silhouetted against the white moonlight. Really beautiful.

[Paulclem]

I take this part as a key passage with the rise of the presence of the narrator in the last part of the poem. All of the earlier activity and the blending of sound and colour is all well and good, but for me the central crux is in the knowing sense of the narrator at the close.

I like the way Leopardi (through Nichols) has captured the sense of activity, like I say, both in sound and colour from the activity of the various types of people, the old and the young, the ardent labourer and the carefree spirit of youth, as well as the “old crone” who looks back on her younger days with pride. I like how the use of sound represented in the poem is emphasised - the shrilling of the bell, the hammer and saw of the carpenter and the shouts and cheers of the boys in play – it all helps to add to the whole picture of anticipation for the Sunday effectively (though perhaps symbolic of life in general?). However for me it is the shadow of the narrator who tells the boy to “enjoy” the “happy state” and the “pleasant lull” at the close who is most important. “I say no more” he then adds, which suggests to me that we are then forced to fill in the blanks with “for it will not last”.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t particularly see the poem as “dark” as such, maybe something that “just is” but neither I am content to see this poem simply as a pleasant sketch of village life.

Good post Neely. I think it is this sense that I meant when I mentioned death through the poem. It is like the narrator's shadow through it:

the crone facing the last quarter - of her life
The air beginning to gloom
The shrill bell announcing the holy day - shrill for me seems to imply some discomfiture
Tomorrow and sadness - the sadness of tomorrow
And Neely's point about the narrator's unsaid words.

There seems to be a few references which I need to think about:
The crone reference to Arachne who challenged Athene to a weave off and was turned into a spider. She wove the infidelities of he Gods - which may be hinted at more in the Grennan translation in relation to he old woman's past.

I also wondered about the carpenter. What does he need to work at all night? A coffin perhaps - hot country an all that - though is might be taking it too far. Christ was a carpenter, and the seven days seems to be a creation reference. Does the carpenter make something traditionally for the holy day? I suppose in a sense the holy day is made by Christ.

Just musing. :D

[LitNetIsGreat]

Yes I agree with your list of points, which I didn't mention, but had thought about to some degree in relation to the passing of time. (The tolling of the bell perhaps significant as a knelling bell, calling home a funeral too?) It is hardly coincidence for me that the old woman talks of her youth. I mean of all the things she could have uttered, she happens to coincide with the idea of the passing of time which along with everything else - seems so significant.

With the colour thing again the description of the sky turning a deep blue all for me points towards the closing of the day (and therefore the life) of the individual which is set against the whiteness of the moon, the purity of a new beginning?

There also seems to be a strong contrast between the energy of youth, the small boys who "crowd and leap about" with the older figures of the woman and the whistling (more sound) labourer who "thinks happily about his day of rest". I mean the old women even refers to her youth as being lively and tells of her "dancing all the night away". All of this points to an energy of youth, a zest for life, which is not found in those with a wider grasp of time’s passing – at least for me it is more than just the physical energy of youth, it is a mental attitude too or an understanding such as is grasped by the narrator.

There is also something I think to argue about the pointlessness of it all, despite all the hard work of the labourer there is nothing to look forward to but the one day of rest and the "frugal meal" not exactly that joyful – and of course the “day of rest” could really be taken as death in itself.

I like your thought about the reference to the carpenter which would seem to sit in terms of our reading of the poem (which seems to be very close) with the obviousness of the Sabbath and its obvious religious connotations.