The document provides notes from Italian and English literature students on the concept of infinity in the works of G. Leopardi and J. Keats. It summarizes that both poets used imagination and nature to understand and depict the infinite, though they approached it differently. Leopardi viewed the infinite as an illusion that provides temporary pleasure, while Keats found the infinite in the eternal works of classical art and the freezing of time.

1. CLASS V B school year 2014-15
SHORT
NOTES ON INFINITY:
G. Leopardi and J. Keats
A Thing of Beauty is a
Joy Forever…
Avolivolo Daniela
Beccarini Luca
Bovino Vincenzo
Capretti Matteo
Cavalcanti Tommaso
Ciccone Giuseppe
Coiro Nicolò
Fanasca Gabriele
Felici Benedetta
Giovannetti Giorgia
Marzocchella Giulia
Mohamed Sara
Patetta Mario
Positano Jana Maria
Surdo Andrea
Tedeschi Noemi
Tirocchi Francesca
Vinciguerra Michele
Zoffoli Guglielmo
…..io quello
Infinito silenzio a questa voce
Vo comparando: e mi sovvien l'eterno
Here are some notes on the concept of infinity in G. Leopardi and
J.Keats written by the VB students after a class debate organized with
the collaboration of Ms Morena, the Italian teacher.
You might find some repetitions on the main ideas, but these informal
comments come from the contribution of all the class.
Patrizia Coppola

2. Since ancient times, philosophers have tried to understand and explain the
sense of infinite: from the pre-Socratic thinkers to Neo-Platonism, from Middle
Ages scholars to Romanticism.
Which poem can make us understand the conception of the infinite better
than “L’Infinito” by Leopardi? The poet does not deal with a scientific infinite,
but about a psychological-imaginative one: in fact he does not believe in its
existence, because according to him it is just an illusion, an illusion which can
be a great source of pleasure, even if not permanent. Leopardi writes this
poem in 1819, it means in the first period of his literary production, when he is
still influenced by his “teoria del piacere”: he states that men want to achieve
an infinite happiness, but they are provided with limited senses, which cannot
satisfy this necessity; so just through imagination men can overtake limits of
reality and reach an infinite pleasure. In the poem the limit is represented by a
hedge, which prevents the poet from looking beyond it. Thanks to the power
of imagination he sees limitless spaces, he hears a deep quiet and he is able to
feel a spatial infinite - “Ma sedendo e mirando, interminati / spazi di là da
quella, e sovrumani / silenzi, e profondissima quiete / io nel pensier mi fingo” -
and then a temporal infinite - “e mi sovvien l’eterno / e le morte stagioni, e la
presente / e viva, e il suon di lei”.
The distinction between spatial and temporal infinite is in Keats’s conception
too. Keats is obsessed by brevity of life, by death and by the slow flowing of
time, and in his sonnet “Bright Star” he affirms that he would like to live an
eternal life. He is looking for an immortal beauty, and he is able to find it only
in classical art. In 1819 Keats writes “Ode on a Grecian Urn” in which he makes
us understand his conception of temporal infinite: he remains astonished while
looking at a classical artwork because it is able to crystallize a moment, which
will remain there eternally. He describes the figure of a boy who is going to kiss
his beloved: the poet reassures him, saying that he must not be sad because
he cannot kiss her, first of all because her beauty, frozen in the urn, will never
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3. 3
vanish, second because happiness often coincides with expectation, as
Leopardi asserts, too.
The temporal infinite is central in this ode: Keats affirms that the urn has a
message which will be eternally conveyed to future generations: “Beauty is
truth, truth beauty”.
Keats’s conception of spatial infinite can be understood in ”Ode to a
Nightingale”: he tries to identify himself with nature, to escape from an ago-
nizing world, far away from anxiety, diseases and difficulties. Poetry, in a soci-
ety which is increasingly individualistic and materialistic, offers the only refuge,
an ideal world where he can live an eternal peace.
The power of imagination plays an important role in
both poets. According to Leopardi, imagination brings
him to perceive a spatial and a temporal infinite; he
cannot see beyond the hedge, so he starts imagining
limitless spaces, deep quietness and infinite silences.
Keats imagines, through poetry, a world where he can
hear the sweet melodies played by the boy on the urn.
The role of nature is important in both as well. According
to Leopardi, especially at the beginning of his literary
career, nature has a benevolent and comforting function
because it gives illusions to men, through which they can
reach happiness. Keats thinks of nature as something
which must convey the poet the sense of eternity (“Bright
Star”); in “La Belle Dame sans Merci” it reflects the poet’s
feelings, but it is also the refuge of the poet who wants to
escape reality (“Ode to a Nightingale”).
Giorgia Giovannetti

4. 4
Giacomo Leopardi, one of the greatest poets of all times, early in his
life realized that he could be only unhappy; this pessimistic attitude,
caused also by his health conditions, pervades most of his poetry,
stressed by the belief that joy is nothing but momentary suspension
of pain. In spite of this, in the poem
"L'Infinito", he discovers a way to overcome
this thought with the support of imagination.
Leopardi imagines the infinite as something
indefinable, spatially and temporally limitless.
The concept of infinite in Leopardi can be
linked with the concept of eternity in John
Keats: he was obsessed by the brevity of life,
so he found a shelter in the immortality of
Classical Art, as Leopardi did in poetry.
Imagination was a way to achieve infinity and
especially f or Keats an instrument to see beyond reality and reach
happiness. Both poets realized that infinity, eternity and the
absolute are creations of human imagination, only illusions that
can't deal with reality.
At last, both the poets
consider Nature as a source of
inspiration, the expression of
the immensity of the universe.
Giulia Marzocchella

5. 5
Leopardi wrote the sonnet “L’Infinito” in a period of his life called
“individual pessimism”, where he thought that man was destined to
unhappiness; he wants to reach “infinite pleasure” but he is only
able to reach “finite pleasure”. The only way to alleviate this pain,
even if for a while, is through illusions.
Leopardi thought that Nature is responsible for man’s unhappiness,
while for Keats, Nature is a source of beauty and inspiration.
Nicolò Coiro

6. "L'Infinito" is based on a paradox:
the spectator cannot see over
the hedge, but he imagines the
infinite. "Shipwrecking" in these
thoughts is sweet and scary at the
same time.
Losing reason while enjoying the
infinite is the main theme of the
composition, even if Leopardi
thinks that the infinite does not
exist in reality, it is just a creation
of imagination. What we think is
infinite is just undefined, and we
cannot reach the limit; it is an illu-
sion, an eternal source of pleasure
for the human mind.
While Leopardi reaches infinite in Nature (the hedge, the horizon),
Keats reaches it through art. He is obsessed by the transience of life,
by death, and finds in art the only way to see eternity. His urn is
eternal, frozen in time, the lovers graven on it, will be together
forever, and so happy as we can't be in real life. Leopardi thinks of the
infinite as a sea where the human mind collapses and feels lost, Keats
thinks of the infinite in time, as the eternal perfection.
The Grecian urn existed in ancient times and will exist forever.
Noemi Tedeschi
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7. 7
The concept of infinity reminds us of something undefined, uncertain
and eternal. These themes are clearly expressed by G. Leopardi, in
particular through his poem "L’Infinito", which we can easily define
the manifesto of his poetic.
The concept of infinity is also present in English Romanticism
and in particular in Keats. In his poems he expresses his ambition to
reach an ideal and eternal world. The poem, that more than the
others underlines the sense of Infinite is "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
where time seems crystallized on the surface of the urn and all the
scenes are frozen in an eternal dimension.
According to Keats, the characters on the urn are living a state
of happiness because they are represented and fixed in the pleasant
condition of expectation for their goals. The sense of expectation is
also present in Leopardi in the poem "Il Sabato del Villaggio" where
the inhabitants of a village are shown while they are in the pleasant
condition of expectation for the festivity on Sunday. Leopardi under-
lines that the reaching of the goal brings sadness and boring time
( "diman tristezza e noia recheran l'ore" ) so the best moment is
represented by expectation.
In Keats, the obsession of
eternity is very clear in the
epitaph on his tomb,
where is written "Here lies
one whose name was
written in water" showing
how human life is short
and transient.
Vincenzo Bovino

8. 8
The main object of “L’infinito” is represented by THE HEDGE (la
siepe) introduced in the 2nd line, which is an obstacle for the man to
see beyond; it represents those human limits that do not allow the
man to make a way into the infinite. Leopardi thought that man was
destined to unhappiness because Nature had created him with the
natural instinct to reach an “Infinite pleasure”, but being only able to
reach “finished pleasures” he can never be happy. The only way to
escape from this sadness, even if for a little time, is illusion; in fact
the only method to be joyful is getting over the limits imposed by
Space and Time: “E il naufragar m’è dolce in questo mare”.
Keats mostly analyzes this concept of Time because he was
haunted by the idea of how short, sad and forgetful human life was.
He celebrates art as the only means that man has to be remembered
also after his death. This “vision” of the English Romantic poet is
visible in one of his masterpieces: “Ode on a Grecian Urn”. As the
hedge, also the urn is a way that leads men to overcome his limits.
Gabriele Fanasca

9. 9
Two of the greatest European
poets (Leopardi and Keats) have two
concepts in common: Infinity and
Imagination. Leopardi wrote “L’Infinito”,
a poem that best describes his
philosophy. In this poem there is a
hedge that blocks his view on the
horizon; this caused in him the
necessity to escape his restricted reality
via imagination which gave him the
possibility to travel through the whole
world by sitting in his room. While imagining, he experiences a
kind of fear due to the conflict of his heart with the concept of
infinity that results from all the possibilities that imagination has.
In “Ode on a Grecian Urn” we can observe how Keats
focused on the concept of the infinity of time. In this ode he
describes the scenes on the urn and the observer has to use his
imagination to picture in his mind the story behind those images.
In a verse of the poem is described a scene where a man is about
to kiss a girl, and Keats explains to us how this man will always
be happy because he will be frozen in time while he is about to
reach his goal (which is the best moment because of the fact that
the expectation of pleasure is pleasure itself).
Andrea Surdo

10. 10
Infinity is not only a mathematical element, but it is a poetical and
philosophical concept. Two poets who analyzed this concept were
John Keats and Giacomo Leopardi. Both thought that infinity was a
research of the absolute.
J. KEATS
He analyzed the concept of Infinity in time because he was obsessed
by the brevity of life; he found it in art, especially in the poem “Ode
on A Grecian Urn”'. He defined eternal the pictures on the urn, they
represented the Infinite in art, so the urn became a symbol of Infinity.
For Keats art was something eternal (Infinity in time).
G. LEOPARDI
In the poem “L’ Infinito" he expressed his idea of the Infinite. He
found out that there were two sensations the combination of which
could bring to the Infinite. Those sensations were: the auditory sensa-
tion and the visual sensation. In this poem he reached the infinite:
when you are in it, you can be afraid of it, but if you leave yourself lost
in the “shipwreck “, it could be soft and tender.
Jana Positano

11. 11
Leopardi's poem "The Infinite" can be compared to some concepts
expressed by the English poet J. Keats in his poem "Ode on a Grecian
Urn". Keats says "heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are
sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on [...] Thou silent form, dost
tease us out of thought as doth eternity: cold pastoral". Leopardi also
thinks that imagination captures the unlimited: like Keats, he lets
himself go out of the real world, reaching the infinite and losing space
and time coordinates: "ma sedendo e mirando, interminati spazi di la
da quella, e sovrumani silenzi, e profondissima quiete io nel pensier mi
fingo [...] e il naufragar m'è dolce in questo mar”.
"Ode on a Grecian Urn" can be also compared to "Il sabato del
villaggio" by Giacomo Leopardi. In "Il sabato del villaggio" happiness
corresponds to the waiting. The happiest day is not in fact Sunday, but
Saturday, the day in which everyone is waiting for Sunday. As soon as
Sunday comes, we are already thinking about Monday, so we are not
happy anymore.
Keats presents the same concept in terms of love: the two lovers are
frozen in the moment right before the
actual kiss, the moment of expectation.
That moment corresponds to happiness,
so expectation overcomes the experience
itself, in "Il sabato del villaggio”.
Giuseppe Ciccone

12. 12
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13. 13

14. “L’Infinito” is one of the first poems
written by Leopardi. He wrote it
while he was in the garden of his
villa, looking at the horizon over the
hedge.
On the other side of the hedge there
is something that Leopardi can only
imagine and aim at: according to
him, this is infinite, something unknown, terrible and terrific. While
being scared and fascinated by Infinity, he is melancholic as well,
because of his impossibility to reach it. But, from a certain point of
view, he is still comforted by the thought of it: E il naufragar mi è dolce
in questo mare.
John Keats was influenced by the concept of the Infinite as well: unlike
Leopardi, whose research was extended through both the dimensions
of space and time, his attention was focused on the sense of eternity.
He felt oppressed by Time, symbol of the end and decay of life and by
the idea of eternity and Absolute. According to him, Eternity can be
achieved only by the
artist’s creation,
But
art cannot be real
life.
Mario Patetta
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15. 15
In "Ode on a Grecian Urn" the ancient work of art embodies an ideal
of absolute, perfect and eternal beauty. This is the only truth to which
man can aspire.
The contemplation of the urn gives birth to such a strong feeling that
the mind gets lost, pushed into eternity by imagination. Leopardi feels
the same while contemplating the hedge in “L’Infinito” and he is able
to overcome his limited vision.
This eternal beauty is in opposition with the experiences of life,
which are subjected to pain, frustration, and death.
The real joy exists in the desire, not in fulfilment of it. In fact the poem
celebrates the desired but not consumed passion.
This aspect can be linked to "Il Sabato del Villaggio", by Leopardi:
joy corresponds to the waiting, the dream, the imagination of the
festivity. The happiest day is Saturday, the day of hopes, waiting for
Sunday, the day of disappointment and
dissatisfaction.
So desire is a better state than its
fulfilment.
Tommaso Cavalcanti

16. 16
“L’Infinito”, written in 1819 in Recanati, is defined as “idillio” which
refers to the idealization of the countryside.
The most famous line is the opening one: “sempre caro mi fu
quest’ermo colle” which leads the reader to feel a pleasure that over-
comes the temporal limits. The colle refers to the mount Tabor.
“E questa siepe che da tanta parte dell’ultimo orizzonte il guardo
esclude” the siepe “bush” is the engine for imagination because it
represents the limit that does not allow to cross the threshold of the
infinite.
“Ma sedendo e mirando interminati spazi di là da quella, e sovraumani
silenzi, e profondissima quiete là nel pensier mi fingo.”These lines
open another dimension where through his thought he imagines to be
beyond the infinite “ove per poco il cor non si spaura”. The sense of
infinite is unbearable to human beings because they are scared of it.
The following lines refers instead to the hearing “e come il vento odo
stormir tra queste piante , io quello infinito silenzio a questa voce vo
comparando: e mi sovvien l’eterno”. While in the first part Leopardi’s
infinite refers to space, in this part it refers to time. Leopardi defines
eternity and catches it when the wind blows through the leaves and
he compares it to the infinite silence.“e le morte stagioni e la presente
e viva e il suon di lei”.
Released from his limits, the author can catch past times and the
present moment. “Così tra questa immensità
s’annega il pensier mio: e il naufragar m’è dol-
ce in questo mar”
Having lost all his temporal and spatial coordi-
nates, the poet can live the infinite and dwell
on it.
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17. 17
The peculiarities of the Infinite are:
- no spatial references; the countryside is vague and undefined.
-no temporal references; the day or the hour is not specified.
Benedetta Felici
.
“L’Infinito” is composed by fifteen-syllable verses, interrupted
by a lot of enjambments, which ideally expand the meaning of a
period, deleting the rhythm. This poem in fact is composed by four
long periods, but only the first and the last end at the end of a line.
The use of vague terms is required to give a sense of undefined space
-time and stimulates the imagination of the reader. The poem, starts
with a time adverb SEMPRE that introduces an undefined period of
time.
Matteo Capretti

18. 18
The contemplation of the urn gives the poet Keats the possibility to be
pushed into eternity by imagination.
Leopardi also believes that imagination captures the immortal; in his
poem “L’Infinito” he describes the adventure of the ego that plunges
into the infinite pleasure; this infinite is produced by individual creative
resources: what we conceive as infinite is actually something which hu-
man senses cannot completely grasp.
As illusion, the infinite proves to be an endless
source of pleasure.
At the end of this adventure, the ego sinks and
Leopardi, like Keats in “Ode on a Grecian Urn”,
abandons himself to a soft loss into the infinite
time and space.
Francesca Tirocchi

19. 19
Leopardi and Keats: they have much in common because they were
both Romantic poets.
They thought that imagination captures the undetermined and that it
is superior to any human faculty.
For them happiness is inside the expectation: in "Ode on a Grecian
Urn" happiness lies in waiting for a kiss and in "Il Sabato del villaggio"
people were happy because they were waiting for the day of
celebration (Sunday).
Both seek their happiness : for Leopardi it is just an illusion and it is
unreachable, for Keats we can find happiness in the eternal beauty of
classical art.
Guglielmo Zoffoli

20. Leopardi thought that everyone is looking for absolute pleasure,
but this sort of pleasure is limited by space and time and the only way
that we have to overcome this limit is by imagining it. Through
imagination, men can reach this absolute pleasure. In “L’Infinito” is
described the adventure of the ego that dips into the infinite. The
“Hedge” is the natural barrier between what is finite and what is
infinite. When the poet sees the hedge, his mind passes from a
sensorial to an imaginative dimension, which is full of abstract places
that create precise and indefinite sensations at the same time. He
manages to connect what is finite with what is infinite, from the
present to the past until the eternal. This adventure ends with the
drowning of the Ego and of the Thought, a “sweet” drowning
because it was created by the subject as a moment of temporary
abandonment of rational thought.
The concept of infinite is exalted by some words, adverbs and figures
of speech. The first word is “sempre” this temporal adverb expresses
the sense of vagueness; the Hedge is an obstacle that activates
imagination, the verb “mirando” means looking and
imagining (“io nel pensier mi fingo”), the repetition
of the vocal “A” in “s’annega” and “naufragar”
encourages the sensation and the idea of the
overcoming of the limit. Anything that creates in us
vagueness causes good feelings because it is an
encouragement to the overcoming of the limits.
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21. 21
According to Keats, the concept of eternal is contained in art. In
“Ode on a Grecian urn”, in the first stanza, the urn is represented as
a living creature (personification) to which are dedicated three
metaphors. In the First one the urn is a foster-child of silence, in the
second one the urn is foster-child of slow time and finally it is a
Sylvan historian. The urn is an artwork, which is perfect and
immutable in time, it is always incorruptible and eternal in silence.
The poet is the most un-poetical thing in existence; in fact, the urn is
the real poet, because his stories are narrated through its silent
images; its beauty and its perfection tell us more about than the
rhymes of the poet himself. “Heard melodies are sweet, but those
unheard are sweeter”, this simple line describes all Keats ‘poetry, in
fact here is underlined the supremacy of imagination. Melodies are
beautiful because they are silent, we can imagine them as we like.
In this second stanza is represented a lover who is
going to kiss his beloved. The lover will be
beautiful and happy forever, the flutes will play
forever and the spring will never finish. Keats
thought that love in art is superior to sensual love
which is always dissatisfied and full of pain (as in
Leopardi).
In the last stanza the urn captures men with its capacity of being
immortal; it will resist in time forever! Luca Beccarini

22. “L’Infinito” describes the moment when Leopardi is on a hill, exactly
the Mount Tabor, not far from his house. The hedge, which is the
symbol of the division between his thoughts and the eternity, blocks
his view of the horizon, however he imagines the silence of boundless
space beyond it. The 4th line starts with the word “Ma” that
underlines the limits of the hedge and the instinctive need to reach
infinity with imagination. While he is sitting to watch around, he
imagines endless spaces beyond the hedge, silences that exceed every
possibility of human understanding and an absolute stillness where
the heart feels almost lost (“ove per poco il cor non si spaura”). The
sudden rustling of the leaves brings him back to reality but as the
hedge has suggested him the idea of the infinite in space, so the noise
of the wind suggests the idea of eternity, the infinite in time.
Leopardi concludes this poem with the lines “Così tra questa
immensità s’annega il pensier mio: e il naufragar m’è dolce in questo
mar”; the oxymoronic arrangement of “annegar” and “dolce” is made
vital by the power of words, the
pauses, the enjambments.
22
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23. “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
consists of five stanzas and
each of them has ten lines,
written in iambic
pentameter; it is dedicated
to an urn that embodies an
ideal of eternal beauty, the
only truth man can aspire.
The eternal beauty is in opposition with the experiences of life, which
is subjected to death, so the urn, which has not been disfigured by
time, is able to tell stories better than poetry itself. The poem
celebrates the desired but not consumed passions, the love of dreams
and expectations rather than the boredom which follows the fulfill-
ment of one’s desires as it is clearly underlined in lines “For ever warm
and still to be enjoy’d, for ever panting, and for ever young; all
breathing human passion far above.”
The urn is considered as an eternal object capable of producing a story
outside the time of its creation using the “beauty in art”. As in
“L’Infinito” by Leopardi, in the second stanza of this poem emerges an
important concept: imagination is superior to the real sensation
“Heard melodies are sweet,
but those unheard are
sweeter”. On the urn is
pictured a young man who is
playing an instrument in a
grove and this scene, as the
others, will live in eternity.
Sara Mohamed
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24. In “L’infinito by Leopardi the exterior elements are fundamental : a hill
and a hedge which cover the view of a large part of the horizon. But
what is the obstacle to the sight of the eyes becomes a stimulus for
the imagination of the poet. The endless spaces of the sky and the
silence all around bring him the deepest quiet of his heart; immensity
sweetly invades his thoughts.
The concept of infinite by Keats is something eternal. He was afraid of
the end of life, he knew that there is an end for everything: life, love
and youth. He hoped for an eternal life, which he discovered in Art. He
recognized that a thing of beauty is a joy for ever.
Michele Vinciguerra
We can link the concept of tempo-
ral infinite of G. Leopardi with the
concept of infinite in Keats.
Keats was obsessed by the brevity
of life and the slow flowing of time.
He hoped for an eternal love, but he was also conscious that every-
thing has an end like mortal love and beauty, for this reason he loved
art: in art everything is frozen FOREVER.
For Leopardi 'the Infinite' is a sort of refuge for human beings: we are
scared by this sensation, but it is what we need in our life.
Daniela Avolivolo
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