Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  For p. 1162, after the middle. We now see the grammatical reason for this formation of continuative verbs. Forming a verb from the past participle of another verb means that the action denoted by this original verb, after it has been carried out in whole [2034] or in part, continues to be carried out. For example, adflictare [to injure/shatter], formed from adflictus, the past participle of adfligere [to strike upon], is like saying adflictum facere [make injured], or, rather, afflictum affligere [to injure the injured], which has greater weight than adfligere, and comes to mean that he who adflixit [to harass], after the patient is already in whole or in part adflictus [injured], does not yet cease to adfligere. Thus datare, which means the habit of giving, comes to express grammatically the idea that he who has already given continues to give. In other words, the verb thus formed comes to mean more actions or subsequent parts of actions—that is, secondary acts or actions—at one time, and in a single word. Hence adflictare signifies an action that is either more continuous or more complete than adfligere. And I say more complete because it seems to me that sometimes the continuative verbs have the force of expressing an action that is more finished, more whole, more completed than the action signified by the positives, and [2035] hence more continuous not so much in itself but in its effects. And that therefore they practically mean penitus … re. [{to do something} through and through].1 See Forcellini’s citation of Gellius under Vexo. This meaning is well suited to the continuatives’ formation from the past participles of positive verbs, since saying, e.g., that one makes a thing destroyed signifies a more perfect and finished action than saying that he destroys it. The former, which includes the past in the present, shows that the present, or, rather, the action that it denotes, is so complete that it is already as if past. The latter has only the ordinary force of the present, etc., with regard to which one might perhaps cite the French verb compléter [to complete], which was also formed in the manner of Latin continuatives, from completus, from complere, which comes to signify completum facere [to fill up], or far compiuto [to accomplish] (rendre complet, Alberti), and means much more than our compiere. See p. 2039.

  Furthermore, everything that I’ve said, in this thought and the one it refers to, about the action or the act, I say, too, [2036] about being acted on, and about what is between action and being acted on, like falling, being, existing, and everything that is the subject of neuter verbs.

  The grammatical explanation that I have given of the formation of continuative verbs is also applicable, for their part, to the frequentatives. So I am fond of saying that both types of verb are, for the reasons mentioned, formed from the past participles of positive verbs, rather than from their supines, as grammarians ordinarily say (not always, however). And as for the participles in us of the neuter verbs, I’ve talked about them elsewhere [→Z 1107ff.].

  These observations can also amplify for us the idea of the great wisdom and subtlety of the Latin language, which is yet among the most ancient. And note that all these subtleties regarding continuatives, frequentatives, etc., are not due to the scholarship and profound skill of those who by applying that language to literature, etc., gave it a whole, stable, and perfect form. Rather, apart from the fact that they long preceded that era, they are much more remarkable, and more evident, and more faithfully observed by the most ancient Latin writers, as I have often stated. And the more ancient the written Latin documents [2037] that we choose to observe, so much the better, and the more consistently, regularly, and distinctly will we discover those properties of the language which I have elucidated and explained. And yet Latium was one of the most uncivilized places on earth. And yet the observations we have made have to do with qualities that require an insightfulness, a subtlety, a singular metaphysics in the language and its original creators.

  These ideas may lead to great conclusions about the natural acumen of early speakers, about the liveliness and the diversity of the relations they discovered, about their insight, metaphysics, etc. In fact, how often is the child more metaphysical and even subtle than the mature man, however experienced in such matters, etc. You can see pp. 2019, end–2020. (2 Nov., All Souls’ Day, 1821.)

  Simplicity is often only [2038] that thing, that quality, that form, that manner which we are accustomed to, whether natural or not. Another thing, form, etc., although it may be much simpler in itself, or more natural, etc., does not appear simple to us, because it repels us, or is different from our own habits.

  So natural things, qualities, manners, etc., or the naturally rendered imitation or expression of them, often do not appear simple to us, because we have not become used to them, or have become unused to them, and for the same reason that they don’t seem natural. That is the case above all with the French. The idea and meaning of simplicity and naturalness varies entirely according to custom (even in a single individual, every day), and what is simple and natural to the French is very different from what it is to the primitives, the ancients, other nations, etc., and this in all domains.

  The simple is in large part just the ordinary, and the extraordinary seldom appears simple. Now, is there anything more relative than the ordinary [2039] and the extraordinary? (2 Nov. 1821.)

  For p. 2035, end. In other words, it is a property of continuatives (a property clearly justified by the method and nature of their formation that I have argued) that they always intensify the meaning and force of positives, in one way or another, etc., and the continuatives always mean more than the positives in some respects, if not entirely. (2 Nov. 1821.)

  Human faculty is a synonym of habit.—Cultured or great man or talent: Habituated or practiced man or talent.—Faculty of generalizing: Habit of generalizing, etc. (2 Nov. 1821.)

  For p. 2033. Great natural strength of feeling, of imagination, etc., does not usually exist without great talent (and so it always accompanies the faculty of reasoning and thinking), that is, a strong disposition toward, and facility in, becoming habituated. The faculty of feeling deeply, etc., and of imagination is acquired, [2040] like all others, through the previously mentioned disposition, and when that faculty is strong it’s a sign that that disposition, too, is strong, and so capable as well of other, very different faculties. Now, the disposition to become habituated includes, as I’ve explained clearly elsewhere [→Z 1761–62, 1824], the disposition to become dishabituated, that is, to easily and readily acquire new and opposite habits. For this reason, the man of strong feeling is in greater danger of losing it, of becoming almost insensible, of acquiring a robust habit of coldness, indifference, deep alienation from virtue, etc. etc., than one who possesses only mediocre feeling, and is virtuous only as a result of mediocre strength, etc. We see, in fact, that the dispositions of such people are long-lasting, in fact the only lasting and constant ones, because they do not easily acquire new habits, are not persuaded by opposing principles, and circumstances have little influence [2041] on them. But the man who is strongly susceptible is for that very reason capable of and susceptible to becoming insusceptible, hard, cold, egoistic, when circumstances lead him to those habits, and experience of the world inevitably leads him there. It doesn’t take much time to convince him, and to habituate him to new and opposing principles, precisely because such a man quickly and easily and intensely knows, feels, and is habituated. (3 Nov. 1821.)

  A swift, concise style is pleasing because it offers the mind a crowd of ideas simultaneously, or ideas that follow one another so rapidly that they seem simultaneous, and set the mind adrift in such an abundance of thoughts,1 or of spiritual images and sensations, that either it is incapable of embracing them all, and each one fully, or it does not have time to be idle and without sensations. [2042] The force of poetic style, which is in large part the same as swiftness, is pleasurable only because of these effects, and consists of them alone. The excitement of simultaneous ideas can derive from each single word, either in itself or metaphorically, and from the arrangement of words, and from a turn of phrase, and from the very suppression of oth
er words or phrases, etc. Why is Ovid’s style weak, and so not very pleasing, although he is a very faithful painter of objects, and a determined and keen hunter of images? Because his images come from an abundance of words and lines, which give rise to the image only after a long circuitous path; and so there is little or nothing simultaneous about him, for the spirit is led, instead, to see objects little by little, through their parts. Why is Dante’s style the strongest that could ever be conceived, and therefore the most pleasurable and beautiful possible? Because every [2043] word is an image, etc. etc. See my discourse on the Romantics.1 Here the essential weakness and the innate excess of descriptive poetry (which is absurd in itself) can be cited, along with the ancient precept that the poet (or the writer) should not pause too long on a description. Here the beauty of Horace’s style (which is very swift, filled with images that emerge in every word, or construction, or inversion, or shift of meaning, etc.), see p. 2049, and, in regard to thought, that of Tacitus’s style, etc. (3 Nov. 1821.) See p. 2239.

  Man’s inclination toward his fellow man is greater the closer he is (and similarly in the case of every living thing) to the natural state, and the livelier and more numerous are the diverse effects (which I have noted in several places [→Z 1688, 1823–24, 1847–48]) of this most basic inclination, the immediate offspring of self-love—which itself is livelier and more energetic, at least in its effects, and in its appearance, the more [2044] natural the living thing is. For example, in the arts, in poetry, etc., everyone loves the imitation of man and human things more than of any other object. But this preference is more notable in the child, whose favorite toys are those which represent people, and, of the tales or stories he reads, those which are about people—etc. etc. etc. Even when he has, e.g., animal figures that are much better made than the human ones he has, etc. etc.

  Man’s propensity to prefer his contemporaries, his equals, etc., has to be related to this inclination, and hence to the self-love that it derives from, and to nothing else. It, too, is greater the more natural man is. When it comes to toys or stories about people, the child most enjoys those which represent, and those which have to do with, things of childhood.

  [2045] It is usually said that friendship occurs among equals. Love certainly, naturally, tends to the equal, as a rule. Because if it is noted that love also tends to opposites, I don’t know, first of all, how natural that propensity is, and, in the second place, it originates, as I’ve said elsewhere [→Z 453, 1880], in another natural disposition which inclines us to the extraordinary precisely because it is, and in that it is, extraordinary. Just as, although we are inclined toward beauty, which is perfect harmony, we are, however, also inclined to grace, which is a certain lack of harmony, or imperfect harmony; in fact more to the latter than to the former, at least in our present state. Nature has many qualities and principles that are at once harmonious and dissonant, rather, that harmonize and that mutually sustain one another by virtue of their contrariety. And one contrary not only does not destroy the theory [2046] of another but in fact proves it. (3 Nov. 1821.)

  Anyone who wants to see how all human faculties are acquired, and the difference that runs between the acquired and the natural or innate, should observe that all the faculties that man is capable of are much greater in the mature (and civilized, etc.), man than in the child (though he is not entirely without them), and they grow together with the man, whereas the inclinations that are inborn—and are very different from the faculties, generally speaking, as here and there I have shown about this or that one, and as one can say of all (provided they are natural and not acquired)—are much greater, livelier, more notable, numerous, etc., the closer man is to the state of nature, that is, either childlike or primitive, or savage, or ignorant, etc. And although human faculties increase with the age of the individual, and of peoples or the world, nonetheless, since there are two types of dispositions toward these faculties, [2047] some acquired, others natural and inborn either in all or in some, the former increase in the same way as the faculties, while the latter, because they are natural qualities, are much greater in the natural man, and especially in the child, than in the civilized man or in the adult. And we see all the time that children are capable of becoming habituated, of learning, etc., things which those who are already men cannot if they did not begin in childhood. In other words, everything natural is much stronger and more remarkable the less cultivated, etc., the subject is, and everything that is stronger, etc., because it is cultivated is not natural, etc. etc. (4 Nov. 1821.)

  Memory is the general preserver of habits.1 Or rather (since we see that, when what is called memory is lost, the habits persist) since memory, [2048] as a faculty, is a pure habit, so every other habit is a memory. All the senses, all the organs, all the moral or physical parts of man, which can become habituated and capable, and can acquire any faculty, are provided with memory. Memory is first a disposition, then a faculty of habituation which the human intellect possesses. The capacity to become habituated and the habituations of the other parts of man are dispositions and faculties of remembering, of retaining, which those parts have. Memory is a habit, habits are likewise memories, assigned by nature to each part of the living thing that is able to become habituated as dispositions, and acquired as faculties and habits. This thought could be greatly expanded, and obtain some good results concerning the nature of memory and its analogy with other [2049] dispositions and faculties of man. As through various circumstances memory weakens, as a disposition, or as a faculty, or in one way and the other, so, too, through various physical, moral, etc., circumstances, do the capacity to become habituated and the habits of the other parts and organs of animals. And as with practice the other habits and the capacity to become habituated either are acquired or increase, etc., so, too, are memory, which is the capacity to become habituated, and memories, which are habits, etc. (4 Nov. 1821.)

  For p. 2043, margin. The beauty and delight of Horace’s style, like other energetic and rapid styles, especially in poetry, since the qualities that I am going to mention belong to poetry and the lyric above all, also originates principally in this: that it keeps the soul in continuous, lively motion and activity, transporting it at every step, often abruptly, from a thought, an image, an idea, from one thing to another, sometimes one that is very distant and very different. The mind has much to do [2050] to reach them all, it is continuously flung here and there, it feels the sensation of vigor (see p. 2017, last paragraph) that one feels when walking quickly, or being driven by swift horses, or engaging in vigorous action, and in concentrated activity (see p. 1999). It is overwhelmed by the multiplicity, and by the variety of things (see my theory of pleasure), etc. etc. etc. And even if these things are not very beautiful or great or vast or new, etc., nonetheless this sole quality of a style is enough to give pleasure to the mind, which needs action, because it loves life above all, and so it enjoys, both in life and in writing, a certain not excessive difficulty that obliges it to act vigorously. And such is the case of Horace, who, in the end, is a lyric poet only because of his style. And so you see, style, even separated from things, can still be a thing, and a great one, so much so that one can be a poet even if one has [2051] nothing poetic but one’s style, and a true and universal poet, and for deep reasons, and by virtue of the most profound and basic, and therefore universal, qualities of the human spirit.

  Horace produces the effects that I have specified at every step, with boldness of phrasing, so that within the space of a single clause he transports you and flings you again and again from one idea to another that is very distant and very different. (As he does, too, with the extremely figurative order of the words, and with the difficulty, and hence activity, that it produces in the reader.) Daring metaphors, unusual and far-fetched epithets, inversions, positionings, suppressions, all within the limits of the nonexcessive (it might seem excessive for the Germans, too little for the Orientals), etc. etc., produce these effects everywhere in his poems.

  Pon
e me pigris ubi nulla campis

  Arbor aestiva recreatur aura

  Quod latus mundi nebulae, malusque

  Iuppiter urget.

  [Lay me in the lazy fields where no

  tree is refreshed by a summer breeze,

  the side of the world that fogs and evil

  Jupiter oppress]1

  First you have laziness, then this applied to fields, and immediately the trees, and the summer breeze, then a side of the world, then [2052] the fogs, and then Jupiter instead of sky, and evil instead of unfavorable, which oppress or push or harass that part of the world.

  The vividness and the value of all this (as of many similar beauties in other styles) consists in the frequency and in the distance of the leaps from one place, from one idea, to the next. Such things derive from the boldness of the material style.

  Because the French language is incapable of such boldness, it is incapable of poetic style, and is a thousand miles distant from the lyric.1 (4 Nov. 1821.) See pp. 2054 and 2358, end.