Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  What I have said elsewhere [→Z 1749‒50]—about how our judgment as regards beauty or ugliness often changes when we see a person known to us whom we do not recognize—can be extended not only to other kinds of beauty or ugliness, but also to other attributes of objects (human or otherwise), even to the figure of a person (no matter how immutable the idea of this seems to be). Of this, too, in people we know, we form a habitual idea whose comparative proportions very often alter, and increase or decrease, should we happen to see those same people without recognizing them, even if we see them on their own, [1794] and without any comparison with other people’s figures, which very often changes the idea of proportions, etc. (26 Sept. 1821.) See p. 1801.

  “᾿Εγὼ μέντοι,” (I however) “καίπερ ὑπερχαίρω ὅταν ἐχθρὸν τιμωρῶμαι, πολὺ μᾶλλον μοι δοκῶ ἥδεσθαι ὅταν τι τοῖς φίλοις ἀγαθὸν ἐξευρίσκω” [“Even though I rejoice exceedingly when I punish an enemy, I am far more pleased when I discover some good thing for my friends”]. Words spoken by Agesilaus (a paragon of virtue, according to Xenophon, whenever he mentions him), to Cotys king of the Paphlagonians, put into his mouth by Xenophon, one of the most eminent teachers of ethics in his day. (῾Ελληνικῶν ἱστοριῶν [Hellenica], bk. 4, ch. 1, § 5.)1 Anyone who wanted to say something striking today would say exactly the opposite. So ethics change. (26 Sept. 1821.)

  Not only does the child have no notion of human beauty, and needs habituation in order to acquire it, but also in order to perfect it and to enjoy all the pleasures his sight may give he needs a long, varied, and particular habituation. And it is also desirable to become knowledgeable, as one does in order to enjoy beauty in the arts or writing. [1795] For that, too, particular attention is required, and a general capacity for paying attention, acquired through habituation. A youth kept closely confined, people withdrawn from the world, nuns, etc. etc., are certainly able to distinguish the beautiful from the ugly, but the more beautiful from the more ugly they cannot. If the thing in question is not particularly noteworthy, they do not feel it, and they have neither a capacity for judging nor a refined sense of beauty, in short, they do not know much about it. This also occurs with people of great talent, with real depths of feeling, and enthusiasm, if, and so long as they find themselves in these or similar circumstances, in which almost everyone will find himself for some period of time. It occurs with individuals nourished in devotion, full of scruples, etc.1 Their judgments in these particulars are very odd, and perhaps odder with regard to the opposite sex than their own, precisely because they have paid it less attention, etc., for scruple’s sake. It occurs with the ignorant, the unrefined, etc., whether they be country people, or even if they are from the upper classes, etc., because they do not have the habit nor therefore the capacity for paying attention, etc. etc. In short [1796], the idea of human or any other beauty or ugliness is not acquired except by considering very carefully how men (or any other physical or moral object) are made. And hence beauty or ugliness depends only on the pure mode of being of a particular kind of thing. This mode is not known through an innate idea, but through experience alone, and it is not well known except when experience is combined with attention, either voluntary or spontaneous and habitual. (26 Sept. 1821.)

  Regarding the claim that a new language cannot be learned save by means of one’s own, note that we are accustomed to evaluating the regularity or irregularity of a language, both in general and as regards each construction, expression, etc., from the manner in which that language conforms to our language and its expressions, etc. So that what seems regular to us is not what is so by nature and analytic reason, but what corresponds exactly to the manner of our own language, [1797] and to the order of expressions and ideas and signs to which we are habituated. And so proportionately up to the point of irregularity, which, though it be highly regular, generally seems to us to be irregular when it clashes with the habitual order of our own tongue. Apply these observations (1) to the French, incapable of knowing another language well and of judging it, and to Italians, who are most capable of doing so, because their language lends itself as much as any of the modern languages can to any manner of speaking, (2) to the weakness and multiplicity of human reason, to the lack of a universal type for it, to the influence that habituation exercises over it.

  So it is that, e.g., to the Italians, Spanish must seem to be the most regular language in the world, and to the moderns, especially the French, every ancient language, and especially Latin, must appear extremely irregular and figurative. It certainly did not appear so to the ancients (and, proportionately, the Italians), etc. etc. etc. [1798] (26 Sept. 1821.)

  On the differences in character in one and the same species of animal, depending on the climate, see Rocca, Guerra di Spagna, Milan 1816, Part 2, p. 202.1 (26 Sept. 1821.)

  On the effect bright colors have on animals (as does sound analogously to that which it has on man), see ibid., pp. 203, end and 204, end.2 This effect, too, will certainly differ according to climate, and be greater in southern ones. (The same could also be said of various sounds.) It will, however, always be greater in animals than in man, because they are more natural. (26 Sept. 1821.)

  The words notte, notturno [night, nocturnal], etc., descriptions of night, etc., are highly poetic, because the night confounds objects so that the mind is only able to conceive a vague, indistinct, incomplete image, both of the night and whatever it contains. Likewise oscurità, profondo [darkness, deep], etc. etc. (28 Sept. 1821.)

  So true is it that the effect of rural images relies to a very great extent [1799] on the wealth of our memories that if you describe, e.g., a field or the harvesting, etc., of vegetables, you will in no way achieve so vivid, or so great or so pleasurable an effect as when you describe a field of stubble, the reaping, the grape harvest, etc. Because the former things are little or certainly less well known, observed, and familiar to those who read poems, etc.

  So a child who of necessity has few memories (but who does, however, have the most powerful imagination) must find little pleasure or beauty in many of the most beautiful parts of the greatest poems. The same goes for the different professions, habits, etc., which, by diversifying memories between one individual and another, further diversify the effect of different poems, etc., and their parts, and hence also the judgment that individuals pronounce regarding them. Perhaps a man with little memory is not best suited to enjoying poetry. Likewise a man not used to paying attention. Likewise a man who is neither sensitive nor susceptible, etc. (28 Sept. 1821.) See p. 1804.

  [1800] The German language was formed in truth more recently than the French. But because it has not been formed by any Academy or Dictionary, because it has therefore not lost the freedom that was originally characteristic of all languages, consequently as it acquires what is modern (as French has done, and as Italian could do), it has not lost what is ancient. It has become suited to philosophy, and has remained suited to the imagination. It has not been impoverished nor intimidated nor rendered monotonous (like French, and the barbarous Italian of our own times). And including in its scope the present century, it has not excluded past ones, as French does, nor in including the past centuries has it excluded the present one, as Italian does. A shining example to us, and the confirmation that what I propose can be done. (28 Sept. 1821.)

  Vigor, whether constant or ephemeral, produces in man a powerful sense of [1801] himself. In his own imagination it renders him superior to things, to other men, to nature itself, causes him to defy the power of misfortune, persecution, dangers, injustices, etc. etc., fills him with courage, etc. etc. In short, the vigorous man feels himself, judges himself to be lord of the world, and of himself, and truly a man. (28 Sept. 1821.)

  For p. 1794, beginning. The same goes for prejudices. Very often it happens that when you see, e.g., a Gentleman, you don’t judge him to be handsome, but once you know him to be a Gentleman his demeanor strikes you
as gentlemanly. If you were to see him without recognizing him, his manners would strike you as wholly plebeian. (28 Sept. 1821.)

  The physiognomy of a woman that resembles that of a man of your acquaintance (without, however, having anything virile about it), or resembles that of an old man (or old woman) of your acquaintance (without, however, having anything senile about it), will strike you as unpleasant for that reason alone, without its having any defect in itself. And no [1802] matter how much you strive to fend off the idea of that similarity, you will never manage (without some particular circumstance) to divest yourself of it in such a way that that person appears to you as she does to others who are either less thoughtful and imaginative, or wholly unaware of the resemblance. The same will be true of a man with regard to women, etc. (28 Sept. 1821.)

  External organs, too, once general habituation is lost, become generally unskilled, even if they once had been highly skilled. As a child, I had an adequate general skill with my hands, due to exercise, and having abandoned it after a few years, I no longer know how to do anything with this organ, except for routine things. And so I have entirely lost that skill,1 both in what I already knew how to do, and in any new activity, which then would have proved easy for me to learn. There you have an image of the nature of talent. (28 Sept. 1821.)

  Strictly speaking, no faculty develops in man or the animals. Rather, it is men’s and animals’ organs that develop, and with the organs, naturally, their [1803] natural dispositions or qualities. It is these (according to the higher or lower level they have attained, according to whether they have this or that attribute, whether they are a greater or a lesser number, whether they are more or less developed, according to their age, and the bodily accidents suffered by the particular individual) that make them capable of acquiring through habituation this or that faculty, to a greater or lesser degree, number, etc. But habituation has such power to modify the organs (especially human ones, which are more conformable than others) that a single one of their qualities or dispositions is susceptible of infinite, utterly different faculties, and in utterly different degrees. Such and such an individual will have a faculty that another one of the same species is so far from possessing that it will scarcely seem to him compatible with the absolute nature of his species, etc. etc. etc. (28 Sept. 1821.)

  One proof of the weakening of generations (see the Nuovo Ricoglitore, issue 31, p. 481)1 comes from seeing how men today in general and women in particular (not just out of affectation, but in actual fact) [1804] cannot abide the use of odors, which is absolutely detrimental to their nerves (and everyone knows how much the nervous system influences and modifies the human mechanism and human life). Above all, they cannot abide intense odors, the use of which, as we know, was so acceptable and widespread among not only the Greeks and Romans but among our forebears, too, as can be seen from the strong and persistent odor that emanates from old cupboards, shelving, drapery of every kind, etc. etc. Today, women in particular (who formerly were very well acquainted with odors) can only tolerate weak ones (and these not for too long, nor too often), in the same way that civilization makes bright colors hateful, introduces a taste for insipid and delicate flavors, etc. etc.1 (29 Sept., Feast of St. Michael, 1821.)

  For p. 1799. The memories that occasion the beauty of many images, etc., in poetry, etc., do not only concern real objects but also very often stem from other poems. That is to say, very frequently an image, etc., [1805] is pleasurable in a poem because of the wealth of memories of the same or a similar image seen in other poems. Rural images are a case in point, as poets use them regularly. So we may see (1) how far the effect of the most beautiful and universally esteemed poetry, etc., is relative, varied, more or less great according to the individual; (2) how many of the beautiful things we admire and think of as wholly characteristic of that particular poet, as coming from his genius and the absolute nature of his poetry, etc., really come from entirely extraneous, accidental, and variable circumstances, with little credit due to the poet, unless he himself has deliberately sought to make use of such circumstances, etc. etc. etc. (29 Sept. 1821.)

  For p. 1776, end. These observations should be extended to cover every kind of illness, habitual or not, accidental or constitutional, at whatever age, etc., comparing the numbers of illnesses and the ill and their nature, etc., in mankind [1806] with the other animal species. I’d almost say that mankind will be found to contain more illnesses and ill people, and bodily imperfections of every kind (increasing, comparatively speaking, from age to age) than do all of the latter put together. (29 Sept. 1821.)

  For p. 1787. In fact, it is very commonplace for an animal that has once escaped a snare, a danger, etc., never to fall into it again, and the saying goes that a dog scalded by hot water is afraid of cold water. This varies, however, in proportion to the capacity for becoming habituated (that is to say, the talent) of the different species. (29 Sept., Feast of St. Michael, 1821.)

  For p. 1127, margin. Modern Spaniards also substitute h for v, and thus say hueco (empty), which in ancient times must have been pronounced vueco from vacuus. (29 Sept. 1821.)

  It is hard for a word or phrase to be elegant if it is not apart in some way from common usage. I mean that it will seldom be right to call it elegant, not indeed that it must therefore be inelegant, and that an [1807] elegant form of writing must consist only of words or phrases that are set apart from the common people. Ancient (not antiquated) words are generally elegant because their remoteness from everyday use lends them an extraordinary and unfamiliar feel that is not prejudicial either to clarity or to fluency, and that accords with modern words and phrases.

  So it is that countless words and phrases that are elegant today were not elegant in earlier periods, because they were not yet set apart or were more rarely used. For everything that is ancient was modern, and all the words and phrases proper to a language were once upon a time common and everyday.

  From this we may argue how salutary it is for the elegance of Italian writing (which is more truly and absolutely elegant than any other modern language) that our language has never relinquished its ancient stock, to the extent that it is still suitable.

  [1808] One effect that may be observed in all the earliest writers of any language comes in part from these causes. They are never elegant, rather they are normally familiar. Familiarity itself being very beautiful, it is very often mistaken for elegance, and may be regarded as one of its species (particularly when familiarity itself imparts an unfamiliarity to writing, because it is not usually used there). But here I do not mean to speak about the elegance of which Caro may serve as a model in verse and prose,1 but the kind for which, in every nation and language, the eternal models will be Virgil and Cicero.

  Now instead of elegance, which is never characteristic of any language at its outset or at the beginning of its literature, what you find in the earliest writers in each language is much familiarity. The earliest Greek writers have not survived. The Latin writers Ennius (in his fragments), Lucretius, etc., can serve as proof of this truth, especially when compared with their successors.

  [1809] But if we do not appreciate their familiarity perfectly—for familiarity is the quality of languages that is the most difficult fully to appreciate in a foreign language, and still more in a dead language—we can very clearly appreciate it in Dante, in the prose writers of the fourteenth century, excluding Boccaccio, who introduced so many Latin words, phrases, and forms into Italian, and in Petrarch (see one of my thoughts on familiarity in Petrarch [→Z 70]), except when he also follows and imitates a Latin manner (as he does, successfully, quite often). These, and all the earliest writers in each language had necessarily to impart a manner, an overall familiarity to their style and to their way of expressing their thoughts, both for other reasons and because they lacked one of the principal sources of elegance, namely, words, phrases, forms set apart from common usage because of a particular, I shall not say antiquity, but so to speak maturity. (As a matter of fact, it is
worth noting that, where language is concerned, true imitation of the ancients immediately lends an air of familiarity to a style.) And just as elsewhere [→Z 1482ff.] we observed that the earliest writers are always the most proper, so too and for the same reasons they should [1810] yield to their successors in elegance (by which I mean what I described above).

  From this it follows: (1) That when, as we often do, we feel this same elegance in our old writers such as Petrarch or Boccaccio, we are feeling something that neither the authors themselves nor their contemporaries felt, inasmuch as those words or expressions have become elegant today because they have been set apart from everyday use with the passage of time, but then they were not.

  (2) That languages, when their literatures first arise, are not capable of more than a modicum of elegance, and the readers of those times do not even look for it, because they hardly regard it as a virtue, or else because they feel that it is impossible in many respects.

  (3) That also, and for this reason in particular, where literature is concerned new languages find it very hard to be appreciated, and to be deemed capable of beautiful and refined style, etc., by those who actually speak and write them.

  [1811] (4) That therefore when the earliest writers wish to give their writings the sort of elegance that comes from unfamiliarity, etc., they are very often obliged to bring their language close to its mother, just as our own writers did, and still do. For the ancient stock of our language (which is in large part antiquated and ugly and coarse) is not enough to impart the unfamiliarity of words, phrases, and forms that is sought after in elegance. It is a very good move to bring it close to a language that is already very fully formed, and whose riches are the source of our own. Whatever is judiciously drawn from that language will then be like an ancient resource of our own, which will have the unfamiliarity of things located in the middle ground between elegance and the ugliness occasioned by what is extraordinary when it exceeds certain bounds. The unfamiliarity that derives from foreign words is, however, usually ugly, or at any rate not elegant. Nonetheless, the earliest writers were sometimes compelled to draw also on foreign languages, as ours did, though with [1812] little success, from Provençal, and as with equal or greater lack of success other very early writers have done and still do in almost every language: the Russians from French, the Swedes first from Latin (which, aside from being dead, is also foreign to them) and then, as today, from French, etc. etc.