In the following essay, Perella ponders Leopardi's relative obscurity outside his native Italy despite the poet's influence on Anglo-American literary culture.

In the following essay, Perella deems Romantic desire and the philosophical longing for the infinite as central to Leopardi's poetry.

In the following essay, Brose examines the relationship of Leopardi's lyrics to the aesthetics of European romanticism in general and of the romantic sublime in particular.

In the following essay, Brose offers a detailed stylistic analysis of “Alla luna,” viewing it as a work concerned principally with the act of remembering, and comparing the poem with others in Leopardi's oeuvre.

In the following essay, Lowry examines Leopardi's poetic development within the historical context of Italian versification, paying special attention to the works “All'Italia” and “La ginestra.”

In the following excerpt, Bini discusses Leopardi's writings as a synthesis between poetry and philosophy, maintaining that earlier critics have mistakenly considered the two aspects of his work incompatible.

In the following essay, Castronuovo explains Leopardi's poem “Nelle Nozze Della Sorella Paolina,” which purports to be a brother's remarks on his sister's marriage, but which is actually a pessimistic assessment of his sister's transition from childhood to adulthood.

In the following essay, Rosenthal discusses similarities in themes, imagery, and even phrasing in the work of Leopardi and Baudelaire.

In the following essay, Williams discusses Leopardi's perception of the legitimate sources of human merit and solidarity in a world devoid of true purpose and meaning, as illustrated in his poem “La ginestra.”

In the following essay, Singh considers the philosophical significance of suffering and inspiration in Leopardi's theoretical writings on poetry.

In the following essay, Caesar rejects earlier critical views that equated Leopardi's own physical limitations with his pessimism and agnosticism, focusing instead on the body as “disputed territory in Leopardi's work.”

In the following essay, Alcorn and Del Puppo study Leopardi's representation of the historical imagination in the poem “Ad Angelo Mai,” citing affinities with Friedrich Nietzsche's view of history and noting the poet's observation that “history at once affirms reason and reveals reason's limits.”

In the following essay, Alcorn and Del Puppo discuss Leopardi's use of figures from Italian history in his poetry.

In the following essay, Bonadeo explores the two phases of Leopardi's views on nature; the poet originally considered nature a benign force, but later began to see nature as hostile toward humanity.

In the following essay, Castronuovo explains Leopardi's use of rhetorical apostrophe in his classically-inspired poems and translations, as well as in his early verses on Christian themes.

In the following essay, Urbancic discusses an especially tumultuous time in Leopardi's life that was followed by a period of calm during which he composed the lyric poems of the “grandi idilli.”

In the following essay, Foster compares the philosophies of Manzoni and Leopardi, who, despite their extreme differences, were both concerned with the nature of truth.

In the following essay, Pesaresi discusses the critical debate on whether or not Leopardi was a Platonic thinker, noting that the relationship between ethics and aesthetics in the poet's work was complicated and ambiguous.

In the following essay, Caserta analyzes Leopardi's political satire Paralipomeni, seeing it as critique of the Italian Risorgimento and a polemical description of “the miserable destiny of the whole of mankind blindly in search of an illusory progress.”

In the following essay, Bonadeo discusses Leopardi's concept of death in the Zibaldone, maintaining that the poet was more concerned with life and its purpose than with death.

In the following essay, Singh traces Leopardi's brief journey from a period of youthful and comforting illusions to maturity and the necessity of abandoning those illusions in favor of a pursuit of truth.

In the following excerpt, Perella examines Leopardi's many references in his lyric poetry to light, which he equated with happiness.

In the following essay, Corrigan discusses Leopardi's reputation in England in the mid-nineteenth century.

In the following essay, Chomel discusses Leopardi's philosophical reflections on time as depicted in his poetry of 1828 to 1829.

In the following essay, Sowell explicates the poem “La vita solitaria,” concentrating on Leopardi's use of literary allusion, and on the poem's theme of personal isolation contrasted with artistic communion.

In the following essay, Cook details the mood, style, and thematic range of Leopardi's poetry.

In the following essay, Stancati examines the relationship of Leopardi's linguistic theory to his study of various thinkers of the French Enlightenment.

In the following essay, Gerato traces Leopardi's increasingly negative assessment of reason, which the poet came to identify as the source of humanity's unhappiness.

In the following essay, King and Bini provide an overview of the composition of Leopardi's multivolume record of his thoughts on poetry and philosophy.

In the following essay, Levi remarks on themes of solitude and silence as key elements in Leopardi's pessimistic poetic expression.

In the following excerpted introduction to his translation of Leopardi's poetry, Vivante summarizes the poet's life and method of composition.

In the following essay, Barthouil examines the Zibaldone's many references to distant lands, particularly in Asia, despite the fact that Leopardi never traveled outside Italy.

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.

In the following excerpt, originally published in 1882, Arnold compares Leopardi with the English poets Lord Byron and William Wordsworth.