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Nihilism in Giacomo Leopardi’s Thought. From Individual Pessimism to Reflection on Human Civilisation in Zibaldone
Katarzyna Kowalik
Abstract
In this research, the theme of nihilism in the œuvre of Giacomo Leopardi will be studied. The great Italian poet is appreciated not only for his literary production, but also for the creation of a philosophical system.
In order to delve more deeply into Leopardi’s thought, notions concerning the nihilism will be explained first. We will refer to the history of this current, with particular emphasis placed on its development in the 19th century. The theoretical basis will later serve to observe and interpret the philosophical ideas of the poet, included in his collection Zibaldone di pensieri.
The text, Leopardi’s true intellectual diary, contains his considerations on a variety of topics: philology, history, politics, literature, morality, religion, philosophy and aesthetics. A recurring motif are the associations to the notions of nihilism: spiritual emptiness, the denial of existence, the feeling of nothingness. Our analysis will show how the poet individually created his reflection on human civilization comparable in certain aspects to the ideas of Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Søren Kierkegaard or Blaise Pascal.
Keywords:
Giacomo Leopardi, Zibaldone, philosophy, 19th century, nihilismDetails
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.