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Giacomo Leopardi, Eamon Grennan:
Leopardi - Paperback

ISBN: 0691016445

[SR: 752992], Paperback, [EAN: 9780691016443], Princeton University Press, Princeton University Press, Book, [PU: Princeton University Press], 1997-05-25, Princeton University Press, These translations of the major poems of Giacomo Leopardi (1798--1837) render into modern English verse the work of a writer who is widely regarded as the greatest lyric poet in the Italian literary tradition. In spite of this reputation, and in spite of a number of nineteenth-and twentieth-century translations, Leopardi's poems have never "come over" into English in such a way as to guarantee their author a recognition comparable to that of other great European Romantic poets. By catching something of Leopardi's cadences and tonality in a version that still reads as idiomatic modern English (with an occasional Irish or American accent), Leopardi: Selected Poems should win for the Italian poet the wider appreciative audience he deserves. His themes are mutability, landscape, love; his attitude, one of unflinching realism in the face of unavoidable human loss. But the manners of the poems are a unique amalgam of philosophical toughness and the lyrically bittersweet. In a way more pure and distilled than most others in the Western tradition, these poems are truly what Matthew Arnold asked all poetry to be, a "criticism of life." The translator's aim is to convey something of the profundity and something of the sheer poetic achievement of Leopardi's inestimable Canti., By general consensus, Giacomo Leopardi is the greatest Italian poet since Dante. His influence on the major Italian poets who come after him--Montale, Ungaretti, and Pavese--is indisputable. Yet he's not well known to English speakers, largely because his work has resisted translation. That's why this fine new version of Selected Poems is particularly welcome. The Irish poet Eamon Grennan has managed to clear away the cobwebs, judiciously employing a loose blank verse reminiscent of Wordsworth and Coleridge. Along with capturing the lyrical fluidity of Leopardi's rhythms, Grennan reminds us that a poem like "The Solitary Thrush" is exactly contemporary with Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale"--and that Leopardi is more acid than the Romantics ever were: You'll not grieve, surely, For the life you've led, since even The slightest twist of your will Is nature's way. But to me, If I fail to escape Loathsome old age-- When these eyes will mean nothing To any other heart, the world be nothing But a blank to them, Each day more desolate, every day Darker than the one before--what then Will this longing for solitude Seem like to me? What then Will these years, or even I myself, Seem to have been? Alas, I'll be sick with regret, and over and over, But inconsolable, looking back. Just as Hamlet leaps out of the Middle Ages into the Renaissance, Leopardi (who died in 1837) ceases to accept the consolations of the Enlightenment. Refusing to find a fixed center of the universe, he admits to the presence of the void. No poet before him so actively conveys the force of nothing: "Tomorrow the hours will be leaden / With emptiness and melancholy." Indeed, the recognition of such metaphysical boredom, which the Italians call la noia, strikes Leopardi as the very badge of humanity: "To suffer want, emptiness, and hence noia--this seems to me the chief sign of the grandeur and nobility of human nature." --Mark Rudman, 10159388011, European, 10096, British & Irish, 10255, French, 10262, German, 3559094011, Italian, 10279, Norse & Icelandic Sagas, 10296, Spanish, 10159384011, Regional & Cultural, 10248, Poetry, 17, Literature & Fiction, 1000, Subjects, 283155, Books

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Giacomo Leopardi:
Leopardi : Selected Poems - used book

ISBN: 0691016445

ID: 3604906

These translations of the major poems of Giacomo Leopardi (1798--1837) render into modern English verse the work of a writer who is widely regarded as the greatest lyric poet in the Italian literary tradition. In spite of this reputation, and in spite of a number of nineteenth-and twentieth-century translations, Leopardi's poems have never "come over" into English in such a way as to guarantee their author a recognition comparable to that of other great European Romantic poets. By catching something of Leopardi's cadences and tonality in a version that still reads as idiomatic modern English (with an occasional Irish or American accent), Leopardi: Selected Poems should win for the Italian poet the wider appreciative audience he deserves. His themes are mutability, landscape, love; his attitude, one of unflinching realism in the face of unavoidable human loss. But the manners of the poems are a unique amalgam of philosophical toughness and the lyrically bittersweet. In a way more pure and distilled than most others in the Western tradition, these poems are truly what Matthew Arnold asked all poetry to be, a "criticism of life." The translator's aim is to convey something of the profundity and something of the sheer poetic achievement of Leopardi's inestimable Canti . literature and fiction,poetry Poetry, Princeton University Press

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Leopardi, Giacomo:
Leopardi - Paperback

1997, ISBN: 9780691016443

ID: 14515448936

Paperback, Connecting readers with great books since 1972. Used books may not include companion materials, some shelf wear, may contain highlighting/notes, may not include cd-om or access codes. Customer service is our top priority!, Gebraucht, guter Zustand, [PU: Princeton University Press]

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Giacomo Leopardi:
Leopardi - used book

ISBN: 9780691016443

ID: 512643420

Princeton University Press. Used - Very Good. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear., Princeton University Press

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Giacomo Leopardi:
Leopardi: Selected Poems - Paperback

1997, ISBN: 9780691016443

ID: 536209

Softcover, Buch, [PU: Princeton University Press]