Leopardi’s Broom: analysis, paraphrase and reflection on the penultimate poem of the Canti. A hymn to human fragility and solidarity against destiny.
Leopardi’s Broom: Analysis
A lyrical-philosophical testament
La ginestra o il fiore del deserto is a song that Leopardi composed in the spring of 1836 , most likely before Tramonto della luna . The song was then printed posthumously in the Canti of 1845: its placement at the end of the collection, its extraordinary dimensions and its thematic and formal characteristics make it a sort of lyrical-philosophical testament by Giacomo Leopardi .
Ginestra’s is an ‘exceptional’ text
A long poem
La ginestra is the longest text of Leopardi ‘s Canti : its seven stanzas are of exceptional size and its long periods sometimes span dozens of lines (vv. 17-32, 98-110, 167-185). It is, therefore, a true lyric-philosophical poem, which in terms of size and genre can bring to mind Ugo Foscolo ‘s Sepolcri : however, it is distinguished from Sepolcri by a superior degree of innovation, formal audacity and intellectual radicality.
The style of Ginestra ‘s text is very varied and inextricably intertwines different tones: the harsh and fiery ones of polemics, the difficult and sublime ones of contemplation that produces reasoning, and the sweeter ones of lyrical dialogue.
Seven stanzas
The material is distributed across the seven stanzas so that each one constitutes a thematic unity and presents a rich gradation of tones, from sarcasm to invective, from compassion to moving elegy.
Structure and themes
The first stanza
In the first stanza the broom is chosen as the poet’s interlocutor and the slopes of Vesuvius, once the site of flourishing cities and now deserted and strewn with ruins (produced by the volcano’s eruptions), constitute the ‘ symbolic space ‘ of humanity’s tragic destiny. In this initial stanza, sarcasm prevails, culminating in the mockery of the false idols of human progress (‘the magnificent and progressive fates’, v. 51).
Portrait of Giacomo Leopardi — Source: ansa
The second stanza
In the second stanza the poet defines the nineteenth century as a “proud and foolish century” (v. 53) and accuses it of having rejected the courageous truths of rationalist thought ; the tone and the contemptuous words of the invective still dominate .
The third stanza
The third stanza contrasts the stupidity of those who refuse to acknowledge human misery with the greatness of those who dare to look this misery in the face and attribute the responsibility to nature, against which men are called to make a common front and to forge bonds of social solidarity («social catena», v. 149).
The fourth stanza
In the fourth stanza the perspective of human unhappiness broadens : from the individual experience of the poet – which recalls moments of nocturnal contemplation of boundless space – a universal meditation arises, induced by the vision of celestial spaces. In the face of man’s useless claims to be the center of the universe, the indignant tone of sarcasm is tempered, and the poet – so he writes – does not know whether to give in to compassion or laughter.
The fifth stanza
The fifth stanza contains a long simile : just as a fruit that, falling from a tree, destroys an entire anthill, in the same way the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD disastrously fell on the cities below ( Pompeii , Herculaneum, Stabiae), wiping them out; for indifferent nature, therefore, the destiny of man counts no more than that of an ant .
The sixth stanza
In the sixth stanza the incessant destructive potential of the volcano is observed and a comparison is presented between human time and the great natural cycles , which in a very slow but continuous motion overwhelm everything, even if they appear immobile.
The Poetics of Giacomo Leopardi
The seventh stanza
In the seventh and final stanza the poet turns again to the broom and praises its humility and courage : fragile consoler of the desert, even the broom is destined to succumb to the «cruel power» (v. 300) of nature; this does not undermine its ‘ heroism ‘, but, on the contrary, exalts it. Here, the now emotional tone and the vague lexicon («slow, fragrant, adorned, soft») suggest the poet’s participation in the destiny of annihilation of all things and, in particular, in the heroic (r)esistance of the broom.
The landscape and nature
The landscape mirrors the human condition
The fundamental theme of the poem is the contemplation of the Vesuvian landscape , a perfect mirror of the human condition and the relationship between man and nature . The landscape appears at times deserted, threatening, imposing, alien: it embodies the indifference and ferocity that Leopardi , at this point in his poetic and philosophical reflection, attributes to nature .
The enemy nature
Nature is responsible for the pain of men and, more generally, for the suffering of all living beings. This position is radically different from the one that Leopardi had supported years before, at the time of the so-called ‘ historical pessimism ‘, when, that is, the negativity of the present was seen as the loss of a relatively happy primitive condition.
The ‘stepmotherly’ nature of the Operette morali
The change of perspective took place around 1824 with the writing of the Operette morali . In the Dialogue of Nature and an Icelander , in fact, the image of a ‘ stepmother ‘ nature appears for the first time, inflicting all sorts of suffering on its creatures (bad weather, cataclysms, diseases), leading to their death, which is necessary for the renewal of the biological cycle . This conception of nature remains in the background in the Canti until the Neapolitan period , when it becomes central in the series of poems that culminates in the Ginestra .
Cosmic Pessimism
It is this negative vision of nature, according to which every living being is condemned to unhappiness, which motivated the definition of ‘cosmic pessimism’ for the second phase of Leopardi’s thought . Leopardi’s gaze, initially projected backwards, into the time of a mythical happy past, now includes the entire universe in its destiny of unhappiness , going beyond the confines of the terrestrial world («the sky ignores everything, / not just this orb», vv. 104-105; «nodes almost of stars», v. 176).
Nature, history and civilization
The Vesuvius volcano in Naples — Source: istock
The senselessness of human history
Compared to this omnipotent and destructive nature, symbolized by the terrible Vesuvius , human history seems to have no meaning: the “one thousand eight hundred / years” (vv. 237-238) that have passed since the destruction of Pompeii have not seen the fragility of men change in the least, always exposed to the same mortal threat.
Idiocy of prevailing optimism
Strengthened by this evidence, Leopardi derides the optimism of his contemporary thinkers, supporters of the “magnificent and progressive destinies” of humanity (v. 51), and accuses his time of cowardice , which refuses to see the reality of things.
The only salvation for men is solidarity
Yet, even if human history appears useless because it is conditioned by the laws of nature, for Leopardi civilization takes on a positive value: the “social chain”, or solidarity , in fact allows men to react to the injustices of nature.
GIACOMO LEOPARDI, BOREDOM
Boredom is the greatest sign of greatness and nobility found in human nature, therefore it is not typical of men “of no moment” nor of animals. In the same year Leopardi composed Il sabato del villaggio (The Village Saturday) , once again addressing the theme of boredom. In fact, having described the anxious wait of the villagers for the feast day, in verse 41 he puts in another light the same wait experienced with the certainty of the next disappointment the next day, once the feast is over.
“Diman tristezza e noia/recheran l’ore” sadness, for the disappointment; boredom, for the unpleasant idleness of Sunday. And, one could say, sadness of boredom, born of boredom. He suggests in the Zibaldone (529): “not the dark and lively pain experienced by children, after a fun time, after a day of celebration”, but the condition of those who “seek and expect fun” and “find nothing but boredom” (Zib 4523), that is, something worse than the disappointment of hope, but the reversal of that expectation, from which lines 41-42 “and to the accustomed toil/ each in his thoughts will return”.
In September 1833, with the composition of A se medesimo Leopardi, disillusioned by an unhappy love, takes refuge in expressions of command, in a lapidary style, in naked and squalid truths said in a funereal and broken assertion hounded by pauses and cold silences. “Bitter and boring / life, nothing else ever; and mud is the world” (vv 11-12): once deceptions are removed, the source of so many noble affections and thoughts of the only possible good, in short, nothing remains for life but pain, and, where there is no pain, boredom .
The poet had already demonstrated it with an example, with his Socratic way, in Tasso’s dialogue. “Altro mai nulla”, through inversion seems to deny, without hope, three times. And the word “nulla” stands out in the middle of the line between “vita” and “mondo” as if it were the only reality and “amaro” and “noia” are the only meaning of that “mud” already found in the song Ad Angelo Mai (“questo secol di fango” v 179) and in Petrarca who in turn compared it to boredom.
