Gennaro Maria Barbuto
Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (gennaromaria.barbuto@unina.it; orcid: 0000-0003-0499-1561)
Leopardi and the “machine age”
Abstract: The article focuses, in particular, on the Palinodia al Marchese Gino Capponi, but also on some Operette morali, works that destroy with an ironic gaze what Leopardi considers the main aspect of modern times, the civilisation of technology. With his point of view marked by absence, that is to say, by a certain critical distancing towards things and, above all, towards the contradictions that mark the ontology of reality, Leopardi does not intend to elaborate any new political thesis, but much more radically to prospect the failings of the political, the aporias of every political proposal. The extreme result of this disruption of politics itself is the Ginestra’s desperate but necessary appeal for human solidarity.
Keywords: Absence; Giacomo Leopardi; Machine age; Operette morali; Palinodia al Marchese Gino Capponi.