Leopardi e la lingua italiana tra tradizione e modernità

The essay aims to illustrate the Leopardi’s ideas on the crisis of the Italian language and culture of the early nineteenth century, marked by an intellectual provincialism that did not allow it to participate adequately in the development of the sciences and philosophy that characterized Europe 18th century. The lucid and disenchanted criticism of the problems affecting Italy of the Restoration is reconstructed: the gap between spoken and written language, between literature and science and between high culture and popular culture, the lack of civic sense and social cohesion, the scarce development of public opinion, cultural backwardness, lack of modernization of the language. Leopardi’s critical position also has political and social significance and presents elements of evident relevance which are still of great interest to the readers of the 21st century.