Shirley Hazzard's Introduction to Iris Origo's LEOPARDI: A STUDY IN SOLITUDE
“Great sensibilities are born into exile. As he came to an understanding of his powers, and of the cruel seclusion of his existence at Recanati, Leopardi was not the first to feel homesickness for a setting he had never known—for the stimulus and sympathy of kindred spirits to whom art and thought, and the heart’s affections, were supreme: a country that he had inhabited in books.” — Shirley Hazard
This week, our featured book is We Need Silence to Find Out What We Think: Selected Essays, by Shirley Hazzard, edited with an introduction by Brigitta Olubas. Today, we are happy to present an excerpt from Hazzard’s introduction to Iris Origo’s study of Italian lyric poet Giacomo Leopardi.
