The ironical angel Leopardi: a benjaminian reading of Pensieri

Abstract

This work supports Walter Benjamin's understanding, which reveals the revolutionary and practical aspects of the "ironical angel" according to Benjamin's designation, as opposed to Friedrich Nietzsche's judgement of the leopardian pessimism justified as the expression of physiologic decadence, and Leopardi identified as a "decayed romantic angel". Here a dialogue is endeavored between Benjaminian arguments, presented on his leopardian Pensieri digest [Kritiken und Resenzionen], and Leopardi's work, Canti e Zibaldone di pensieri: something necessary to enlighten the contents of his "desperate philosophy" (filosofia disperata), as well as, the aspects of his critique of the present.