Analysis "Night Song of a Wandering Shepherd in Asia," Giacomo Leopardi
This poem was composed between 1829 and 1830 and it is chronologically the last of the Idylls of Pisa-Department Recanatesi . In it we can still trace elements of the poetics of their 'indefinite and vague, but the most important element of that song is the presence of existential questions destined to remain unsolved, through which the poet pauses to reflect on the misery that involves constitutive the entire human race and all living beings.
The song opens with a simple shepherd taken as a symbol of humanity that will appeal to the moon, which is configured as the interlocutor of the pastor as he waits in vain for answers to existential problems and universal but these questions are merely rhetorical question that the poet knows the answer.
"What dost thou moon in the sky Tell me what you do or silent moon"
Already in the first two verses Leopardi apostrophizes the moon with the adjective quiet just to indicate that it will remain a partner mute.
"Rise up and move at night contemplating the desert places where sunsets. You have not yet met to retrace always the same way to heaven? Still do not get bored, you are still curious to watch these valleys? The life of a pastor like yours. begins at dawn leads the flock to see flocks and fields, lawns and fountains, then tired in the evening rests and never want another. "
In these verses is the existence of the moon compared to that of the shepherd to the repetitiveness that characterizes both, in fact through this description, the emphasis is on the monotony of the two ways of living that we reiterate the same as they themselves do not always want to change or novelty.
"Tell me what does the moon or the shepherd's life and yours? Tell me what is the purpose of my short trip, and of course your eternity? "
Leopardi searching for the meaning of his life which he characterized as a metaphor for" my brief wandering "and more generally of life of all beings. The first room here is concluded therefore focused on the comparison between the lunar cycle and the life of a pastor.
"A hoary old and sick, not fully clothed, barefoot and with a heavy load on his shoulders through the mountains, valleys, rocky land is a sandy beach and through the bushes with the wind when the storm ' now burning heat, and when it gets cold runs away, running and panting from the effort, passes / ford streams and ponds, falls, gets up and hurries more and more, without break or rest, worn out and bleeding, until when he arrives where his fatigue was addressed: the horrible abyss, where he rushing you forget everything. O moon uncorrupted by human misery, this is the mortal life. "
This second room is an allegory of human life compared to an old man who faces all sorts of difficulties and then finally fall into the oblivion of death described here with a metaphor as "horrible and vast abyss" really the word "huge" in verse 35 and in the following verse the word "forgets" serve to give the idea of \u200b\u200binfinite, undefined, vague featuring the poetry of Leopardi, In fact, a necessary condition for the poet to create poetry is a reproduction of the idea through language undefined man as having in itself an infinite desire to cross their limits can not find pleasure in a poem in which all is well circumscribed and limited in its outlines.
"Man is born with labor and birth also raises the risk of dying. First in pain and misery from the start and the mother and father begin to console him for being born. Then hand it grows both parents continue to help with actions and words and try to give him courage and comfort of his position as a man. "
These words clearly a totally negative view of existence that would then dominated, as the poet, pain, suffering, sorrow and misery.
"Others favor more pleasing you can not help from parents to their children. But what is the point of giving birth and to keep alive then who will be comforted her condition? If life is misery because we continue to endure? Intact moon, this is the state of death. But you are not fatal and you might just care about my words "
The poet can not find an explanation for why men bear still life and what is the purpose of giving birth to beings who are destined unhappiness. In the last two verses, the poet also affirmed that the moon is an understatement immortal through a clear antithesis between "death state" and "you are mortal" insinuates doubt that the moon how nature is indifferent to human suffering, why this typical of the poet's cosmic pessimism for which the nature ceases to be a benevolent mother and becomes evil stepmother that deludes and disappoint people and that puts him in the unrestrained power to knowledge destined to remain unfulfilled, remain impassive in front of his drama. Many in this room are the words that rhyme with each other as the "birth" "torment," "words" children " "Sun", "status" "grateful," "doom" "hard," "this" deadly "" creeks "that along with many enjambements give the poem the rhythm of a chant.
"Yet you lonely and tireless traveler, you're so thoughtful, maybe you know what this earthly life, our sufferings and our sighs, what is death and this extreme pale face, and the disappearance of land and to escape any normal company and loved. "
In these verses the adjectives attributed to the Moon "solitary", "eternal" "Thoughtful" make the idea of \u200b\u200ba vague and undefined, there is also an iteration of "you" that emphasizes the insistent call of the moon also pastor of the anaphora "it" concludes that the verse 64 and the next begins has order to attract the reader's attention on finding the meaning of life and pain. Many in this first part of the fourth room clashes of consonants like "rr", "str", "sp", "st", "PR", "nt" who want to communicate their unhappiness el'asprezza the human condition.
"And you certainly understand the why of things and see the sense in the morning, evening, the silent and endless flow of time. You certainly know who to love her sweet smile in the spring, to whom the heat is beneficial and what succeeds in winter with its ice. A thousand things you know, a thousand will discover, that are hidden ingenuous pastor. Often when I look at you being so quiet on the desert plain that borders on the horizon with the sky "
This second part of the fourth stanza by the poet expresses the need felt by all mankind and believe that there is someone who knows meaning, the end of everything that exists.
"Or with my flock, I see you follow me by moving slowly and when I look at the stars shining in the sky I say to myself thinking, what for many lights? What is the air infinite and infinite calm that deep? What do you mean this endless solitude? And what am I?
In this way I reason with myself: the room is boundless and is superb dell'innumerevole family, then I think all 'efforts of the many movements of all things heavenly and earthly turning back the clock to always be there where I started, and I can not guess any benefit or purpose. "
Notice in these verses yet the use of terms acts to evoke a sense of diffuse as "deep", "infinite," "immense", "huge", "innumerable". The poet with the metaphors "huge room and superb" wants to show the universe and "innumerable family" instead of mankind. In verse 94 the contrast between "heaven" and "earthly" informs us that Leopardi questions about everything that happens in the cosmos. In verse 97 we find instead a chasm "any use, no fruit" that is a cross arrangement of the constituent elements of a sentence in this case are adjective-noun, adjective-noun.
"But you certainly know all immortal and forever young. Of this I am sure and aware that the eternal movement of my frailty and others will have some advantage or satisfaction, for me, life is bad."
important from the standpoint of rhetoric and prolepsis present at approximately 100 that is the anticipation of what is being said with the aim of calling the attention of the reader through the unusual construction of the sentence.
"Blessed are you, my flock, or that you rest, you're not aware of your unhappiness, how I envy you! Not only because you are almost free from suffering, because any effort every great fear all evil you forget immediately, but most never try because of boredom. When you sit in the shade on the lawn you are calm and happy, and spend most of the year in this state, without boredom. And also I sit on the grass in the shade but a nuisance fills my mind and a stimulus so that bothers me more than ever are sitting far from finding a place where I feel at peace. "
The poet in the sixth room sets his envy toward animals that have not troubled by pain and are quickly forgotten any negative experience while the man is destined to keep the painful memories. His envy, but it is generated primarily from the fact that the animals can find peace and tranquility in simple ways even just sitting on a lawn, but this possibility is denied to the man who in a similar situation would be assailed by the feeling of boredom that dominates along with the pain of human existence. Shopenauer, in fact, believed that human life is like a pendulum swinging between pain and boredom and the moments of happiness are those fleeting moments when the pendulum is in the middle. The human mind is so in any case always dominated by quell'irrefrenabile quest into the unknown to knowledge but not finding answers that humans appaghino generates a sense of frustration and dissatisfaction to his soul that denies the possibility of abating.
"But I do not want anything and yet I have a reason to suffer. I do not know what your joy and how intense, but you're lucky. While I rejoice in my own little or flock, and I'm not complaining just that. If you knew me you talk ask questions you would ask me why lying in state of complete neglect and laxity each animal is satisfied if I rest and I are attacked by boredom? "
Throughout the sixth room taedium Leopardi speaks of the life that is just bad men, since the animals are not immune to being endowed with reason and not asking questions of life. Leopardi called boredom as the absence of any sense of right and wrong, then it is a condition inherent to the very being that it can not be subtracted unless they choose to live without thinking. According to the poet boredom ennobles man, he differs from the rest of living beings but prevents it from finding satisfaction and fulfillment.
"Maybe if I had wings so you can fly above the clouds and count the stars one by one or as if the thunder I could wander from mountain to mountain I'd be happier, my sweet crude, I'd be happier or white moon. Or maybe my thoughts considering the fate of other living beings differ from reality, perhaps, in any form, in any condition are born, is in a den in a house on the day of birth is tragic. "
In this last room are the synthesis of the cosmic pessimism of Leopardi, first under the illusion that they can be happy if you could live the life of a thunder, or had the ability to fly but then realizes that in any form one lives, both animal and human, their lives will still be dominated by unhappiness. The poet's pessimism in its last phase and then expands to include all living things, each historical epoch. The pain then not only affects the 'man but also animals, but he is the meanest of all because his intellect makes him bitter about the inevitability of his fate. The man, like all other living beings is born just to die and its path from birth to death is full of hardships, obstacles and suffering. In the world so there is a continuous cycle of production and destruction of matter whose only goal is to perpetuate itself.
