Leopardi, la malinconia. By ELIO GIOANOLA. Milan: Jaca. 1995. 505 pp. 48,000 lire.
This study proposes a revaluation of Leopardi's life, works, and thought, in the light of his existential condition of melancholy, and to this end a multi-faceted approach is adopted, combining biography, literary criticism, and psychiatry.
The first four chapters deal in a wealth of detail with the circumstances that brought about the condition of melancholy, beginning with the guiding concept ...