Poetry Reading Group Redux- Nominations

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Originally Posted by JBI

Hmm, to try and bring this thread back to the top, and reawaken the discussion of The Broom,

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Good idea, JBI. We never did finish this poem. In fact, we hardly started it. I got sidetracked by family stuff. People were moving or needing to be visited. I actually just got back from my niece's second birthday (I got her some plastic trinket). I'd love to get back into the Leopardi discussion, though.

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Originally Posted by JBI

The ending, rather than praise a sort of enlightenment, seems to gesture that his idea of "enlightenment" is that of self defeat; one is insignificant, so the moral, and learned are the ones who realize their insignificance - in essence, the nihilist.

The vehicle of the Broom then, is a vehicle for nature - nature is the broom that sweeps over all - Vesuvius' lava, the moving of the planets.

IF we return to a reading that intertexts the Bible - we can see Leopardi is comparable to Jesus, when viewing the world. His position as dying "prophet" if you will is coupled with his view of the future - instead of the awakening with the second coming, his view gestures to the Broom - the world, its pathway, is but anticipating the destruction - the explosion that will end it all, the broom that will sweep its memory clean away, as it is but an insignificant spec in a grand, meaningless scheme.

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That's how I read "Sunday Evening" with its stress on peace, quiet, and nothingness: "All/ Is peace, all quiet, the whole world still." "The Broom or The Flower of the Desert" seems to be the more polemic version of that earlier poem. Polemic, though, implies a correct position and a mistaken opponent, so I think some of the nihilism of the previous poem drops out here in this poem. It seems like, rather than a cycle, the poem suggests that life, civilization, etc. gradually move toward a better life and then backslide to some primitive, inorganic state. There's a generative and progressive impulse on the one side that contributes to a better life and civilization, but there's also a contrary force pushing back from nature that counters that civilizing impulse. I think you can see this in certain place like here:

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Thought, which all that brought us
Almost out of the barbarous dark, alone
Enabled civilization, is what alone
Steers the state toward a better life.

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(Bold added, of course)

The poem does posit a "better life," rather than an endless shifting cycle of different states that are neither better nor worse. Leopardi genuinely appears to want his readers to embrace thought, sympathy, and justice in the poem. There is a realization that nature might be more powerful than these human impulses, but I don't think it makes them meaningless. I would say that Leopardi is really suggesting that we restore the "social bond/ Against the savagery of nature." Or, at least, that wish is what's giving the poem its energy. And the polemic is what's motivating so much of the rhetoric here. The opening epigraph makes Jesus's castigation of non-believers the model for the poem's attack on those who don't see the truth of "thought" and the "social bond/ Against the savagery of nature."

I don't know if I agree - I think the better life could ironically be gestured as "no life" or death. There is a collection of works from his Zibaldone and philosophical papers translated as Thoughts that sheds light and provides an interesting context of the poem. Generally, within its frame, Leopardi seems to see death, which he was rather clear was coming for him by this point, as the sort of release; the end to the bitter life. I do not think he is rather being optimistic, but rather he is lying to himself openly, for the sake of creating a peace of mind which he both craves and abhors.

For instance, his whole career seems to be marked by a contradiction of rejection of religion, nihilism, and belief in the cruelty in nature on one hand, and then on the other hand, a yearning for a sort of religious experience, for a sort of familial/sexual experience that seems intertwined with religious imagery, and also a sense of the transient in nature.

Ultimately though, the regeneration you speak of seems to be in line with Hamlet's "To Be or Not to Be" soliloquy, which I believe Leopardi had read in the original if I am not mistaken, in that it gestures to a sort of peace and calmness in the end with death - nature prevailing restoring a calm emptiness to what was once the buzzing Pompeii - he very much is exaggerating his own experience through a rather giant image - the destruction of all.

That seems a problem with Leopardi's work, that he likes to project his own suffering as a human state, and his own lack of being loved as a human condition, and his own death and decay as a "human condition". If the poem is doing anything, it is taking a view of the world - creating a panoramic view of humanity, through the lens of his interior.

I am not too sure if the ending is gesturing to a hope, or rather ironically marking a peacefulness in the absolute destruction of his time period, a perhaps veiled reference for his death (without issue as they say), and the end to his "suffering."

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Originally Posted by JBI

I am not too sure if the ending is gesturing to a hope, or rather ironically marking a peacefulness in the absolute destruction of his time period, a perhaps veiled reference for his death (without issue as they say), and the end to his "suffering."

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Yeah, I don't think the poem is holding out much hope either. You're right that it project a bleak picture of human destiny. What I was saying, though, is that the poem does seem to believe that there are better and worse places to be, and that it's best to work to improve society when we can. Those lines that I quoted point to the benefits of thought. You're saying that there's a veiled reference to death lurking there, but you might want to explain that out more. Thought is usually considered the practice of an active mind--not one dead in oblivion. Later on the poem encourages "struggle"--another active role:

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She's [nature] the one he calls enemy,
And believing the human family
Leagued to oppose her, as in truth it is
And has been from the start, he sees
As allies all men, embraces all
With unfeigned love, giving and expecting
Prompt assistance, useful aid
In the many hazards and lasting hurts
Of the common struggle

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This sounds a bit too much for death. Throughout the poem, too, these active roles--whether struggling for the common good or appealing to though--recur frequently. I've quoted from two places, but I could pull many more. Leopardi talks of the "forg[ing]" the "social bond/ Against the savagery of nature." I think you're right that death lingers not far off from Leopardi's mind in place like these lines:

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Who, without flinching, still can face
Our common plight, tell the truth
With an honest tongue,
Admit the evil lot we've been given
And the abject, impotent condition we're in;
Who shows himself great and full of grace
Under pressure, not adding to his miseries
The hate and hostility of his fellow-men

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Now that sounds like preparing for death. You're certainly right that "our common plight" is probably just a thinly disguised mention of his own coming demise. I don't agree, though, that his approaching death leaves him nihilistic. I don't think death overwrites the other portions of the text where the speaker asks society to move toward a more rational and compassionate understanding. If Leopardi wanted us to write all of that off, I don't think he would have phrased the "common stuggle," "forg[ing] ... the social bond," and "thought" in such active terms.

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Originally Posted by JBI

That seems a problem with Leopardi's work, that he likes to project his own suffering as a human state, and his own lack of being loved as a human condition, and his own death and decay as a "human condition". If the poem is doing anything, it is taking a view of the world - creating a panoramic view of humanity, through the lens of his interior.

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I read back over the poem today, and I think I agree that the biographical element is at least as strong as the polemic here. I'd back away from saying that it's just polemic that's motivating the verse. Really, Leopardi is coming to terms with his own death and incapabilities. I just don't think that's all that's going on in the poem. I still think the polemic element is in the poem. It's hard to read sections like the ones I posted above in a purely self-pitying, biographical context.

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Originally Posted by JBI

Ultimately though, the regeneration you speak of seems to be in line with Hamlet's "To Be or Not to Be" soliloquy, which I believe Leopardi had read in the original if I am not mistaken, in that it gestures to a sort of peace and calmness in the end with death - nature prevailing restoring a calm emptiness to what was once the buzzing Pompeii - he very much is exaggerating his own experience through a rather giant image - the destruction of all.

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Two things here: I don't think Hamlet's soliloquy promises calmness in death, nor do I think Leopardi suggests nature will restore peace. Only if you stop reading nine lines into Hamlet's speech could you say that he's talking about calmness in death. After that, he continues: "For in that sleep of death what dreams may come/ When we have shuffled off this mortal coil/ Must give us pause" (III. i. 65-7). This is the "dread" of the "undiscovered country" that prevents people from pursuing death. Ultimately, death isn't calmness. It's dreadful dreams that will give us pause. As for "Broom or the Flower of the Desert," I'm not convinced that nature restores a calm emptiness. It seems like nature reduces the world to a horrible emptiness. Nature is not something that's embraced with open arms in the poem. Rather, it's something that's to be resisted.

I liked that you brought in the biographical elements to the poem. That was all stuff I didn't consider until you posted, but I think you're overstating your case case when you say we should read sections like the ones I posted in purely that light.

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Originally Posted by JBI

That seems a problem with Leopardi's work, that he likes to project his own suffering as a human state, and his own lack of being loved as a human condition, and his own death and decay as a "human condition". If the poem is doing anything, it is taking a view of the world - creating a panoramic view of humanity, through the lens of his interior.

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I never responded to the more evaluative part of your post, so I'll do that here. I didn't answer this part mostly because I agree with it. Leopardi does seem at his best when he keeps to the events of his life. "Saturday in the Village" and "Sunday Evening"--while taking up some of the same ideas--end up being much more subtle and, above all, believable. It's a little hard to take seriously the enormous claims of this poem when we know it's motivated so much by the misfortunes of his own life, rather an honest appraisal of Italian society. Or, I should say, that his own misfortunes unduly color his impressions of Italian society, and that weakens his polemic. Also, I didn't think the poem was that clever. "Saturday in the Village" and "Sunday Evening" wove together religious fervor, interpersonal love, a good knowledge of literary tradition, and the events of his childhood to create something quite interesting. "Broom" falls a little short of that.

Oh, and this thread needs a bump:

http://lifeboat.com/images/bump.sign.jpg
Very Deserved

Ive read the poem through and just re-read the first 50 lines.

I The broom seems to represent an offering or a memoriam in the lines:

Nothing is found but ruin
Where you are rooted, gentle flower, and where,
As pitying other people's harm, you send
Your incense breathing perfume to the sky l 32-35

Which seems , in the light of the last stanza, to represent Leopardi's view, or perhaps an idealised self image in its personification as heroic:

That head of yours was never bowed before
In craven supplication and in vain
Never to the oppressor; never held erect
Either, in crazy pride towards the stars. l. 307-310

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Originally Posted by Quark

I never responded to the more evaluative part of your post, so I'll do that here. I didn't answer this part mostly because I agree with it. Leopardi does seem at his best when he keeps to the events of his life. "Saturday in the Village" and "Sunday Evening"--while taking up some of the same ideas--end up being much more subtle and, above all, believable. It's a little hard to take seriously the enormous claims of this poem when we know it's motivated so much by the misfortunes of his own life, rather an honest appraisal of Italian society. Or, I should say, that his own misfortunes unduly color his impressions of Italian society, and that weakens his polemic. Also, I didn't think the poem was that clever. "Saturday in the Village" and "Sunday Evening" wove together religious fervor, interpersonal love, a good knowledge of literary tradition, and the events of his childhood to create something quite interesting. "Broom" falls a little short of that.

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It's interesting though how he is read, as an object of the polemic, as a failed philosopher. From my understanding traditionally he is given to students around the age of 17 or 18 in classrooms after they had previously done two or so years dealing mostly with Medieval through Classicist poetry - he comes at a time where I think he is most resonant; that is for instance, when I first read him, and his pseudo-philosophy seems to carry a dark, bitter truth. Similar to how American (male) young adults seem to like Beat Movement authors and stuff sometimes with a darker theme. Also similar to how Hamlet is treated in high schools I guess.

From an academic view though, I think he is read from above, rather than from within, or "overheard" as they say, rather than heard. So his life, philosophy, and poetry become a case study, rather than an actual literal expression; nobody I think seriously agrees with him, but we read him, from my understanding of how he is generally read, through the lens of curiosity. His dark and morbid themes are interesting for their dark, morbid images, and for his bitterness, rather than for their real intellectual discussion, in the formal sense of polemic.

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

Which seems , in the light of the last stanza, to represent Leopardi's view, or perhaps an idealised self image in its personification as heroic:

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I think that's pretty safe to say. It's a little harder to tell why that's his position, and why he delivers it in this inversion of the pastoral idyll.

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Originally Posted by JBI

It's interesting though how he is read, as an object of the polemic, as a failed philosopher. From my understanding traditionally he is given to students around the age of 17 or 18 in classrooms after they had previously done two or so years dealing mostly with Medieval through Classicist poetry - he comes at a time where I think he is most resonant; that is for instance, when I first read him, and his pseudo-philosophy seems to carry a dark, bitter truth. Similar to how American (male) young adults seem to like Beat Movement authors and stuff sometimes with a darker theme. Also similar to how Hamlet is treated in high schools I guess.

From an academic view though, I think he is read from above, rather than from within, or "overheard" as they say, rather than heard. So his life, philosophy, and poetry become a case study, rather than an actual literal expression; nobody I think seriously agrees with him, but we read him, from my understanding of how he is generally read, through the lens of curiosity. His dark and morbid themes are interesting for their dark, morbid images, and for his bitterness, rather than for their real intellectual discussion, in the formal sense of polemic.

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Are you talking about "Broom or the Flower of the Desert"? Or, are you referring to how the entirety of Leopardi's work is considered?

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Originally Posted by Quark

I think that's pretty safe to say. It's a little harder to tell why that's his position, and why he delivers it in this inversion of the pastoral idyll.



Are you talking about "Broom or the Flower of the Desert"? Or, are you referring to how the entirety of Leopardi's work is considered?

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Talking about the collection as a whole, but I guess especially the poems of his later career, not particularly the early idylls.

"My philosophy not only does not conduce to misanthropy, as some superficially observe, and as many accuse me; it essentially precludes misanthropy." Giacomo Leopardi --- http://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstrea...pdf?sequence=4 From Rice University, this bit of scholarship on Leopardi is worth the read although the title "The Poetry of Pessimism" does not really capture Leopardi's essence; there is something joyful in this "misanthrope".