Product Description

Penned by the greatest Italian poet and thinker of the nineteenth century, these precious musings contain immense philosophical and psychological insight. Ranging from mankind to nature, and from social order to the individual soul, they reveal a mind of brilliance, and a man struggling to reconcile all that he sees around him. Sharply observed and expertly constructed, Leopardi's Thoughts remain remarkable in their timeless appeal.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #634551 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-29
• Original language: Italian
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 112 pages

NewBOOK.mag
Reading groups would, in my opinion, find so much to discuss, smile about and argue about that it would be an ideal book for discussion - Val Lewis

From the Back Cover
Men are wretched by necessity, and determined to believe themselves wretched by accident.

About the Author
Giacomo Leopardi is the greatest poet of the Italian Romantic movement. Edoardo Albinati is a distinguished author, poet, newspaper journalist, and translator of, amongst others, Vladimir Nabokov, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Shakespeare. His latest book is 19 (Mondadori, 2001).

Customer Reviews

Interesting ideas, but unfinished
I had never heard of Leopardi before picking up this book - to be honest, I was seduced by the beautiful desert picture on the cover, and also the blurb's promise of amazing philosophical and psychological insights. What I got was basically the notebook of an intelligent, thoughtful person. There were some interesting ideas, but nothing was fully formed or developed enough to be particularly interesting to me. The book did a good job of skewering social pretensions and shallowness, but that was nothing particularly new. The book was unfinished in Leopardi's lifetime, and perhaps the finished version would have been brilliant. This sequence of half-formed thoughts and bon mots, however, was just a quick and not particularly satisfying read.