LEOPARDI DAY 2024
New Approaches to Operette Morali (1824-2024)
17 June 2024, Research Centre, Christ Church, University of Oxford
Organised by Leopardi Studies at Oxford (LEO)
Funded by the Christ Church Research Centre and Society for Italian Studies
Celebrating the 200-years anniversary of Giacomo Leopardi’s Operette Morali (1824), this one-day symposium, organised by Leopardi Studies at Oxford (LEO) and sponsored by the Society of Italian Studies and Christ Church Research Centre at Oxford, gathered together leading experts as well as doctoral students and early career researchers working on Leopardi. The symposium revolved around Leopardi’s Operette morali, given its bicentenary anniversary, but its broader aim was to assess and reassess the current state of Leopardi Studies in UK and beyond, encouraging a fresh, contaminated and open-ended exploration of Leopardi, his context, and his legacy.
The day started with an introduction by Emanuela Tandello, President of LEO, who welcomed all attendees, both in person and online.
The first panel, chaired by Martina Piperno (University of La Sapienza/Laboratorio Leopardi), included talks by Luca Costa (University of Oxford), Gennaro Ambrosino (University of Warwick), and Francesco Marchionne (University of Durham). Luca Costa proposed an irrationalist reading of the operetta Dialogue of Porphyry and Plotinus. Gennaro Ambrosino’s talk traced the influences of geologic theories on Leopardi’s Operette, producing a mapping of ‘geologies’ in Leopardi’s works. Francesco Marchionne investigated the notions of ‘memory’ and ‘forgetting’ in Leopardi’s Operette and, in particular, the Dialogue of Torquato Tasso, placing them within the wider context of the presence of those notions in European Romanticism.
The panel was followed by a roundtable on contemporary approaches to Leopardi Studies. During the roundtable the upcoming edited volume Contaminazioni leopardiane (Mimesis, 2024), was presented. Edited by Alessandra Aloisi, Olmo Calzolari, and Emanuela Tandello, the volume includes contributions by attendees present at the event. It was said that the volume depart from a more traditional idea of influence and even dialogue and refers to an active process whereby we take Leopardi’s own work as an eminent example on contamination in which different ideas, approaches, perspectives contaminate each other.
In the second panel, chaired by Frances Clemente (University of Oxford), Luca Tognocchi (University of Bologna), Fabio Camilletti (University of Warwick), and Letizia Leonardi (University of Aberdeen) presented papers. Luca Tognocchi’s paper investigated the relationship between the Dialogo di Malambruno e di Farfarello and Goethe’s Faust, and more broadly the myth of Faust. Fabio Camilletti focused on the Dialogo di un venditore d’almanacchi e di un passeggere, putting forward a reading centred on the systematization of dates in Leopardi during the years of composition of the Operette morali, signalling his profound awareness of temporality, passing of time, and structure of the year, marked by festivities and anniversaries. Letizia Leonardi analysed the problems of translating the Operette into English. Her paper fostered a productive discussion among the attendees, especially given that Emanuela Tandello is herself translating Leopardi’s Operette.
The last panel, chaired by Paola Cori (University of Birmingham), included two papers by Enrica Leydi (University of Warwick) and Marta Arnaldi (University of Oxford). Enrica Leydi investigated the role of landscape in the Operette and, in particular, Storia del genere umano. Marta Arnaldi examined the ways in which Leopardi represented and foresaw the evolution of AI, arguing that some of the features of contemporary AI are already present in his works, including Proposta di premi fatta dall’Accademia dei Sillografi.
The day was concluded by a final discussion, mainly about the reception of Leopardi’s work and thought in the UK and the US and the new approaches and directions of Leopardi Studies.