Contents

Acknowledgments

Sources and Translations

Introduction

Part One: Nobility—A Family Legacy and a Lingering Ideal

1	Family Connections

2	Poetry and the Heroic

3	A Different Nobility

Part Two: Leopardi in Love

4	The Languages of Love and Misogyny

5	A Loving Partnership and Consalvo

6	A Different Love

Part Three: Leopardi as a Poet of the Risorgimento

7	The Poetry and Rhetoric of Liberal Patriotism

8	Monaldo and Giacomo Leopardi: A Comparison

9	Unpleasant, Rancorous Leopardi

10	Leopardi in a Twentieth-Century Political Context

Part Four: Leopardi as Poet-Philosopher

11	Nihilism, Death, and the Human Condition

12	Nietzsche, Lucretius, and Leopardi

13	Leopardi between Supernaturalism and Materialism

14	How Schopenhauer Illuminates Leopardi

Part Five: Humanism in Life and Letters

15	Friendship and Classical Studies

16	Women in Leopardi’s Intellectual and Sentimental Life

17	Humanism and Society

Bibliography

Index