Giacomo Leopardi Critical Essay | Critical Essay by William Gladstone

Critical Essay by William Gladstone

SOURCE: Gladstone, William. Review of Poesie di Giacomo Leopardi. The Quarterly Review 86, no. 172 (1850): 295-336.

In the following excerpted review, Gladstone observes that Leopardi was not a poet of the very highest status but finds much that is great and admirable in his collected works of poetry.

When we regard Leopardi in his character of a poet—in which no Italian of the present generation, we conceive, except Manzoni even approaches him, and he in a different order, and perhaps but in a single piece—it is not difficult to perceive that he was endowed in a peculiar degree with most of the faculties which belong to the highest excellence. We shall note two exceptions. The first is the solid and consistent wisdom which can have no other foundation in the heart of man than the Gospel revelation: without which, even while we feel the poet to be an enchanter,...
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