L’Anacreonte di Leopardi

Semplicità, grazia, intraducibilità

Abstract

This article investigates the significance of Anacreon’s influence throughout the evolution of Leopardi’s thought, with particular emphasis on the practice of translation. The impossibility of translating Anacreon, as expressed in Discorso sopra Mosco even before than in Zibaldone, is the essential key to analyze Scherzi epigrammatici, Inno a Nettuno and Odae adespotae. The paraphrase of one of Anacreon’s odes at the end of Elogio degli uccelli shows how for Leopardi the irrelatability of the ancient poets to the modern age becomes much more than the mere reception of a topos.