Giacomo Leopardi is Italy's greatest modern poet, the first European writer to portray and examine the self in a way that feels familiar to us today. A great classical scholar and patriot, he explored metaphysical loneliness in entirely original and new ways. Though he died young, his influence was enormous, and it is no exaggeration to say that all of modern poetry, not only in Italian, derives in some way from his work.
Leopardi's work is notoriously difficult to translate, and he has been less well known to English-language readers than his greatness and influence might suggest. Now Jonathan Galassi, whose translations of Eugenio Montale have been widely acclaimed, has produced a strong, fresh, direct version of this essential work that offers English-language readers a new approach to Leopardi. Galassi has contributed an informative introduction and notes that provide a sense of Leopardi's sources and ideas. This is an essential book for anyone who wants to understand the roots of modern lyric poetry.

First published in 1831, and here presented in a dual-language edition with annotations and additional reading material, Leopardi's poetical masterpiece is an unsurpassed anatomy of man's unhappiness on earth. Trapped between an admiration for the classical past and a disappointment in the impoverished present, Leopardi rejected both the easy allure of Catholic faith and the unbridled optimism proposed by science and the Enlightenment. His unflinching pessimism and existential resolve, here brilliantly rendered in verse by prize-winning translator J.G. Nichols, make him one of the most fascinating and best-loved Italian poets.

Newly awakened interest in Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837), arguably the greatest Italian poet since the Renaissance, has resulted in this project to translate a major portion of his works. This volume is the first of four which will encompass the great "Canti" (in bilingual text), selections from the poet's correspondence, a substantial portion of his enormous intellectual journal, the "Zibaldone," and the focus of the present volume, the "Operette morali."

Originally planned as a set of dialogues in the manner of Lucian, the "Operette" is a compilation of brief, interrelated works on questions of moral philosphy. By means of numerous characters, and by means of a range of styles, Leopardi grapples with a theory of pleasure, the concepts of fame, the infinite, human happiness, the function of poetry, and other topics. In the poet's own opinion, the "Operette" represented his major philosophical speculation and ranked just below his "Canti."