La leggerezza delle Operette | Emilio Russo

The Operette morali are one of the great masterpieces of Italian prose: an ambiguous book, difficult to fully understand, yet also perfectly accomplished from an aesthetic and stylistic perspective. A highly critical man of letters like Tommaseo had no hesitation in calling it "the best-written book of the century." This lesson will illustrate some of the essential characteristics of the Operette—in terms of design, content, and style—to also grasp their significance within Leopardi's overall career. Finally, we will highlight the work's enormous influence on subsequent Italian literature, particularly on certain twentieth-century authors. We will discuss: A secret book. The Operette originated early on Leopardi's desk, but were always kept in the shadows, as they were "too liberal to discuss them openly" (as Leopardi wrote to Giordani). For this reason, it may be useful to follow Leopardi's every move and prudence up to the book's first edition in 1827, released the same year as Manzoni's "The Betrothed" (The Twenty-seventh Edition). How Leopardi worked. Some manuscript notes, now preserved in the National Library of Naples, allow us to see the mysterious and fascinating way Leopardi constructed the Operette, planning their titles or imagining their protagonists and content. Reading these papers also allows us to grasp the ambition with which the collection was constructed over time. The role of laughter. The Operette morali have always been considered a manifesto of Leopardi's so-called "pessimism." In reality, both in the projects expressed by Leopardi in his letters and within the work itself, we see a fundamental role assigned to laughter, a laughter of awareness and compensation, and thus appears as a lesson silently delivered to readers. Nature after the Icelander. A major theme of Leopardi's reflections in the Zibaldone, Nature appears as a protagonist in two operettas (Dialogue of Nature and a Soul; Dialogue of Nature and an Icelander), but it also plays a fundamental role in the final part of the book, contributing to the richness and complexity of the work as a whole. The "book without equal." Among Leopardi's great works, the Operette morali is perhaps the most successful in twentieth-century literature: it has been rewritten, revived, and paid homage to, from Calvino (whom we owe the citation) to Manganelli, from Cesare Pavese to Michele Mari. Hence, we raise some questions about the reasons for this powerful presence. Speaker Emilio Russo teaches Italian Literature at Sapienza University of Rome. His publications include: the annotated edition of Giovan Battista Marino's Adone (BUR, 2013), A Reading Guide to Tasso's «Gerusalemme Delivered» (Laterza, 2014), The Renaissance (with G. Alfano, C. Gigante, Salerno Editrice, 2016); the monograph Laughing at the World. Leopardi's Lesson (Bologna, il Mulino, 2017); an annotated edition of Leopardi's Pensieri (Oscar Mondadori) is forthcoming. For Mondadori Università he has published (with Giancarlo Alfano, Paola Italia, and Franco Tomasi) the textbooks Italian Literature (in two volumes, 2018) and Profile of Italian Literature (2020).