Everywhere reality proved a bitter disillusionment. Several devoted publishers and friends offered him various jobs and forms of subsistence, but generally to little avail. The poet both expected and invoked death, which came to him in Naples in 1837, shortly after he had dictated his last poem.
The Canti
As Elme Marie Caro said, Leopardi wanted to be, deserved to be, and was a philosopher. He did not come to philosophy through poetry, or to poetry through philosophy; his poetry is his philosophy. While Leopardi's prose works (the magnificently cogent Operette morali, 1827; the diary called the Zibaldone, 1898–1900; and the copious correspondence, or Epistolario, published posthumously) reflect the melancholy meditations of a thinker concerned with universal sorrow, the most fulfilling expression of his thoughts is to be found in his poetry, the Canti (1831, 1835, 1845). The Canti complement and complete the Operette, because in expression and content they constitute an organic outgrowth of the nature and orientation of Leopardi's philosophy.
Pessimism
Leopardi's philosophy, which should not be viewed as a methodically pondered and presented system, has been labeled skeptical and pessimistic, a philosophy of despair. Indeed, it dwells upon the triumph of evil over good and of nature over man, the mystery and insignificance of our mortal existence, the anguish of our miseries, the extinction of youth, and the lure of death.
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