Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  To what I’ve said elsewhere [→Z 1366, 1579–80], that simplicity is relative, add that today, e.g., a simple style like Xenophon’s, or that of our writers of the fourteenth century, would seem most ugly, even if it was unpretentious, and was made up of words and phrases that are not at all antiquated. The simplicity of today is very different from the simplicity of that time, and much lower in degree. Something that isn’t understood by those who urge us to imitate the ancients. (13 Sept. 1821.)

  For p. 1658, beginning. This observation can be related to the usefulness of verse for remembering things by heart, etc. Observe further. Sounds are material things, but being sounds they are barely material and have something spiritlike about them, because they are not distinguished by any other sense than hearing, and are imperceptible to sight and touch, which are man’s most material senses. So if you want to teach [1690] the structure of a tune, the analysis, the differences, the gradations between the notes to someone who doesn’t know much about music, or not enough, and you want to do it through hearing alone, you will have a hard time of it. But if you make him see it, so to speak, on the pianoforte (or written out, etc.), and thus make the notes material, along with the distinctions between them and their positions, he will easily grasp everything, and (even if he knows nothing about music) he will be able to sing that tune after he has seen it with more assurance, etc., than if he had only heard it. And generally speaking, one can say that the clarity of expression of any idea, or teaching, depends on making it as material as possible, or relating it to matter, by means of similes, metaphors, or in any other way. (13 Sept. 1821.)

  For p. 1656, beginning. Melancholy, for example, makes us see things and truths (so called) in a way very different from, and opposite to, that in which cheerfulness makes us see them. There is also a state in between that makes us see them in its way, and that is boredom.1 Both the cheerful and the melancholic (whether they are two thinkers and philosophers, or one philosopher at two different times and in two different states) are very sure that [1691] they are seeing the truth, and have convincing reasons for their belief. It’s unfortunately true that, abstractly speaking, the friend of truth, the light that reveals it, and is least subject to error, is melancholy and, above all, boredom. The true philosopher in a state of cheerfulness can only persuade himself, not that the true is beautiful or good but that evil, that is, the true, should be forgotten, and console himself accordingly, or that it is better to give a certain reality to things that do not truly have it. (13 Sept. 1821.) See p. 1694, end.

  For p. 1132. Besides, that a very ancient caps or other, similar monosyllable is the root of caput [head] is confirmed by observing that, in fact, the archaic root of this word is cap, or what corresponds to the Greek word κεφαλὴ [head], that is, to its first part, κεφ. (The φ was in ancient times a p, as I’ve already said elsewhere [→Z 1139]. Or rather the φ didn’t exist but only the π, which was used in its place, and then, with the aspirate added, was written πη and hence φ.) (13 Sept. 1821.)

  You reformers of the human spirit, and of the work of nature, you preachers of reason, try to [1692] create a novel, a poem, etc., whose protagonist is perfect and extraordinary in all his moral aspects, which are dependent on man, and imperfect or less than perfect in his physical aspects, where man cannot take any credit. What do we talk about in this century, which is so spiritual, especially in literature, that by now seems to despise anything that has a trace of the bodily—what do we talk about, I repeat, in poems, novels, all our works of imagination and feeling, other than the beauty of the body? This is the first condition if you want to make a character interesting.1 The perfectibility of man, as I have said elsewhere [→Z 830] doesn’t have to do with the body. And nevertheless, perfection of the body, which does not depend on men and is not the work of the intellect, is the main feature we look for in the hero of a poem, etc. (or that we must imagine, because any slight physical imperfection imagined for him would spoil every effect), and it is the most effective, if we suppose that he is also perfect in spirit. This is not something one can be silent about. Even if one is, the reader will make up for it, but to make a protagonist ugly on purpose is equivalent to giving up on any effect. (See what I say on this point where I speak about compassion [→Z 220–21].) Mme. de Staël was not beautiful. In a soul like hers, this circumstance must have produced countless sublime thoughts and feelings that were utterly new when they were written, profound, and passionate (as Chateaubriand claims of Virgil).2 She loved originality above all, and cared little for good [1693] taste (see Allemagne, tome 1, last chapter).1 Like all great writers, she depicted her own emotions, her own experiences in her novels, and so uses women for the principal effects. Nonetheless, she is careful not to make her heroes or heroines ugly or less than beautiful. All the open-mindedness, all the boldness, all the originality of an author in any era cannot go that far. What is beauty? The same, in essence, as nobility and wealth: a gift of chance? Is a great, sensitive man any less worthy because he is not handsome? What lack of true merit is found in the ugliest of men as opposed to the handsomest? And yet the writer or the poet must not only beware of making the man ugly but also guard against entering into comparisons on his beauty. Every effect would vanish if, speaking either of himself (as Petrarch does) or of his hero, the author said that he was unlucky in a given love because his features, or also his bearing and his outward manners (something entirely corporeal), were not attractive to the beloved, or because he was less handsome than a rival, etc. etc. What is the world, then, except [1694] NATURE? I’ve said [→Z 601–602, 1026, 1262, 1657] that the human intellect is material in all its workings and its conceptions. The same theory of the intellect has to be applied to the heart and the imagination. Virtue, feeling, the highest moral values, man’s purest, most sublime, and infinite qualities, those apparently farthest from matter, are not prized, have no effect except as matter, in being material. Separate them from beauty, or from outward manners, and one feels nothing. The heart may imagine that it loves the spirit, or feels something nonmaterial. But it is utterly deceiving itself.

  The same thing happens in a certain sense with regard to style and words, which are, as Pindemonte rightly says, not the clothing but the body of thoughts.1 And ask the history of every literature how much the effect of style outweighs the effect of thoughts (although very often the reader doesn’t realize it, nor can he distinguish things from words, and attributes to thoughts alone the effect he feels, which is what in large part the art of style consists in). (13 Sept. 1821.)

  For page 1691. I am not talking about eloquence, and its power of persuading man of what it wants. But how often, when we read, e.g., a [1695] philosopher, do we completely share his opinion, and then, reading one who says the opposite, we change our opinion, and, going back to the first, or another with the same idea, we return to the first opinion, etc. This is something that happens all the time, in reading or in discussion, whether it’s a matter of opposing or contrasting ideas, or ideas that are, in whole or in part, inconsistent. And it happens even to the man who is reflective and attentive and profound1 and free in thought, that is, not easily moved, or accustomed to give weight to authority and the opinion of others whom he reads, hears, etc. (14 Sept. 1821.)

  The power of habit over the idea of propriety. Usage has established that the poet write in verse. It is not of the essence of poetry or of its language and mode of expressing things. Of course, since this language and mode, and the things the poet says, are completely different from the ordinary, it is very appropriate, and extremely useful for his effects, that he employs a rhythm, etc., that is different from vernacular and common usage, in which things are expressed as they are, or as they are usually considered to be in life. I leave to one side the usefulness of harmony, etc. But in essence, in itself, poetry is not tied to [1696] verse. And yet, outside of verse, bold flights, metaphors, images, concepts, everything has to have a plainer tone if it is to avoid the distastefulness caused by affe
ctation, and the impropriety of what is said to be too poetic for prose, even though the poetic, in the full extent of the term, does not include either the idea or the need for verse, or of any melody. Someone could be a very passionate poet in prose, without any impropriety at all, and that prose, which would be poetry, could without any impropriety fully assume the language, style, and all the possible qualities of the poet. But the contrary and ancient custom (originating perhaps in the fact that poets were inspired by composing with music, and did compose in accordance with it, in measure, and with singing, and hence made verses, which was very natural) prevents us from finding something proper that in itself is in no way discordant with the nature of human language nor with that of the poetic spirit or of man, or of things. [1697] (14 Sept. 1821.)

  For p. 1676, end. Likewise, one can say that all habituations, and hence all conceptions, and all human faculties, are simply imitation. Memory is but an imitation of past sensation, and subsequent remembrances are imitations of past remembrances. Memory (that is, in short, intellect) is like an imitation of itself.1 How do we learn save by imitation? Someone who teaches (whether material or immaterial things) only teaches us to imitate on a larger or a smaller scale, more narrowly or more broadly. Whatever material skill is acquired through learning is acquired by imitation alone. Those that are acquired on one’s own are acquired through successive experiences that a man attends to, and then imitates, and in imitating them, learns how to execute them, and imitates them better until he perfects them. So I say concerning intellectual faculties. The very faculty of thought, the very faculty of inventing or perfecting in any material or spiritual sphere is simply a faculty of imitation, not particular but general. Man imitates [1698] also when inventing, but in a broader manner, that is, he imitates inventions with other inventions and only acquires the inventive faculty (which seems to be quite the opposite of the imitative) by virtue of imitations, and imitates at the same time as he exercises the inventive faculty, which is itself truly imitative. See pp. 1540, end and ff. (14 Sept. 1821.)

  For p. 1605, beginning. From all this, it follows that man as he is in nature would not be to the liking of man as he is today, nor would he seem beautiful to him; that natural ideas (that is, that derive from nature) regarding human beauty (which is, however, the least subject to disagreements) clash to the utmost degree with our own; and that, above all, the woman who was beautiful in nature, and the most beautiful that could be imagined, would not be to the liking of modern man at all. Because the foundation of human beauty is vigor, which in nature would be offensive and disagreeable to modern women not by its scarcity but by its excess. But if the foundation of feminine beauty is delicacy, this in nature would for us be guilty [1699] of excessive scarcity. And since so-called coarseness is proper to both natural man and natural woman, it would be less improper (according to our opinions) to men than to women, because in the latter it would be further, in the former not so far removed from the fundamental attributes of their beauty, etc. etc. etc.

  Anyway, what is good taste? What is its model? Nature? On the contrary, nature made us very different from what we are, and therefore gave us very different tastes. And not only in relation to human forms, but as regards every object of good taste, etc. etc. etc. (14 Sept. 1821.)

  For p. 1562, end. There is no wildness in nature. But there is for us. Which means that we are not as we should be. What for us is wild, either ought not to have been of use to us, and was not destined for man, or is only wild because we are civilized, and hence incapable of using it as we should have done, and as nature had destined it. It cannot be denied that cultivation, grafts, etc., improve plants, fruits, and their stocks, many of which [1700] in their wild state would be of absolutely no use to us, or would be much less useful or pleasing to us, etc. The same is true of animals, etc. But this improvement is relative to our present state, by no means to the nature of those stocks, etc., that are supposed to have been improved, nor to our own proper nature. Indeed, those stocks, etc., with the improvements that they receive from our arts, acquire any quality but vigor, robustness, health, the strength to resist inclement weather, difficulties, etc., to function, etc., to grow proportionately, etc. Indeed, what they gain in other qualities (not proper or original to them), they lose to the same degree in vigor, which is the real character of nature in all its works, and without the right dose of which, proportionate to the nature of each kind, the individual is, in short, in a state of habitual illness. See Vegetius’s Veterinaria, prologue to bk. 2, in the passage cited by Cioni, “Letter to G. Capponi” on Pelagonius, note 19.1 Due vigor is the first and most necessary of all faculties, because, in brief, it is simply the faculty of fully exercising all one’s own faculties, and all the qualities regarding one’s own nature, and all the physical perfection of one’s own existence. Without this physical [1701] perfection (which nature gave directly to all kinds, to mankind as to the others, as against the supposed perfection of the mind), neither the mind (which depends wholly on the physical) nor the whole animal can ever be anything but imperfect. (14 Sept. 1821.)

  The concomitant ideas that I have said [→Z 109–11] are awakened by even the most proper of words, as opposed to terms, are (1) the countless ideas, memories, etc., attached to words that come from their being used every day, independently of their particular nature, but linked to habit and the very many different circumstances in which that word has been heard and used. If I call a plant or an animal by its Linnean name1 instead of its usual name, I do not awaken any of these ideas, although I make it quite clear what the thing is. These ideas are very often linked to the word (which in the human mind is inseparable from the thing, it is its image, its body, even when the thing is material, indeed it is identical to it, and it can be said that language in relation to the mind of the person who uses it contains not only the signs of things, but almost the things themselves) [1702]—ideas, as I was saying, are linked to the word rather than the thing, or linked to both in such a way that if the thing is divided from the word (since the word cannot be detached from the thing), the thing no longer produces the same ideas. Divided from the usual word or words, it becomes like a stranger in our lives. Something that is expressed with a technical term has no familiarity for us, it awakens none of the countless memories of life, etc. etc., in the same way as things appear almost new and bare when we see them expressed in a foreign language that is new to us. And we cannot manage to appreciate such a language perfectly until we have penetrated every detail and every little part and idea contained in words with the simplest meaning. (2) Ideas contained in metaphors. The bulk of any human language consists in metaphors, because roots are very few, and language spread mainly on the strength of resemblances and relationships. But most of these metaphors, once the original meaning has been lost, have become so proper that the thing they express cannot be expressed, or rather cannot be expressed in any other way. Countless numbers of these metaphors, furthermore, never had any other meaning but their present one, and yet they are metaphors, that is to say, by means of a minor modification a word meaning one thing, thus modified, means another having some relation to the first. This is the principal way in which all languages have grown. Now, as long as the etymologies of what originally were metaphors, but today, or even since the beginning, are in effect proper words, are recognized and felt, as [1703] happens at least in the greater part of a language’s proper words, the idea that they awaken is, so to speak, double, even though the word is absolutely proper. Furthermore, they produce in the mind not only the conception but the image of the thing, however abstract it might be, for even these, in any language, are always expressed in the last analysis by metaphors drawn from what is material and sensible (more or less vivid, and expressive, and apt, according to the characters of the languages and nations, etc.). For example, our word costringere, which means to force, still clearly retains its etymology, and therefore the material image from which this word, which is originally a metaphor, derived, etc. etc.
The sum of such images in writing or speech, especially in poetry, where the most attention is paid to the full value of each word, and where there is a greater readiness to conceive and take note of the images that they contain, etc.—this sum, as I was saying, forms the beauty of a language, and the different strength, etc., both of languages in respect of each other, and of different styles, etc., in the same language. But if, e.g., we expressed the thing expressed by costringere [1704] with a word taken from a foreign language, whose origin and etymology was not generally known, or at any rate not felt, this word would certainly awaken the idea of the thing, provided it was properly understood, but no image, not even almost of the thing itself, material though it was. This is the case with all words derived from Greek, which abound in our languages, and especially in our terminologies. These words, when they are routine and everyday, like philosopher, etc., may belong to the class I noted in the first place, but never to this second one. They, and similar ones taken from any language, and not proper to our own particular language, will always be, as I have said elsewhere [→Z 109–11, 951–52], technical words, bare meaning. Likewise modern words—deriving either from words already established in our language, but whose etymology is unfamiliar, or from words proper to the language—because for the most part, given the nature of the times, they are much further removed from the material and sensible than are ancient words, and have a more spiritual character; they are therefore normally terms and not words, and awaken no [1705] concomitant image, nor do they have anything living about them, etc. Such are the terms that elsewhere [→Z 109–110, 1226–27] I have described French, especially modern French, as possessing in abundance, not only because of the nature of the times, but also because of the nature of that language, and its character and form.