Two hundred years ago to the day, Giacomo Leopardi confided to his notebook an elegant sentence of such a precise sound and sense that the changes worked in them through the interval are nearly none. It is unadorned and open to its readers; anything but a gate that may or may not slam shut in their faces.
This prose did insulate itself against the mutability of literature.
Yet only at the end of the century were his notebooks published in their entirety. Hence this one remark, and so much else of importance, remained unknown during the years whose questions they distilled so well, and so early. Moreover, their sheer volume in published form has itself helped to guard the contents against the vandalism of scrutiny. And – because many professors of humanities, over the last hundred years or longer, have seemed to want above all to trouble, deconstruct, or shatter everything they touch – fortunately so, one may say.
At least one entire later philosophical œuvre, is spun out as though it were mainly an unwitting expansion of this single sentence by Leopardi.
Human reason (la ragione), he wrote, in a miniature specimen of counterpoint, per se, e come ragione, non è impotente né debole, anzi, per facoltà di un ente finito, è potentissima; ma ella è dannosa, ella rende impotente colui che l’usa, e tanto piú quanto maggiore uso ei ne fa, e a proporzione che cresce il suo potere scema quello di chi l’esercita e la possiede, e piú ella si perfeziona, piú l’essere ragionante diviene imperfetto: ella rende piccoli e vili e da nulla tutti gli oggetti sopra i quali ella si esercita, annulla il grande, il bello, e per cosí dir la stessa esistenza, è vera madre e cagione del nulla, e le cose tanto piú impiccoliscono quanto ella cresce; e quanto è maggiore la sua esistenza in intensità e in estensione, tanto l’essere delle cose si scema e restringe ed accosta verso il nulla.* – Now, reason, in this usage, may refer to several things, but here I need not itemise nor analyse them. Instead I shall limit myself to one remark about the nothingness (il nulla) to which the crescendo of its dominion is said to conduce.
* Zibaldone, vol. v (entry of July 11, 1823)
Nothingness in his usage designates an active process of emptying-out: through it is fomented a vacancy akin to a fate. By the end of the nineteenth century, the sense of this ending was palpable nearly everywhere; thus there arose a prompting to inquire into the etymology of these terms. Just this connection was underscored in an interesting essay about the conditions of human labour by the social scientist Francesco Nitti.
La radice originaria indo-europea di questo tema latino fati (greco χα-τι, χά-σκω, χα-τέω “ sono vuoto ”) è ghâ, a cui si annette l’idea di mancare, venir meno, esser privo.
Although this derivation of the Latin term is not confirmed by Julius Pokorny’s dictionary, where it is linked to the root bhā-, which pertains to speech, nonetheless the meanings of “fatum” and the other terms related to it, do come suggestively close to those of the Greek words he mentioned. Of the latter, the main one “χάσκω” signifies to gape open, to yawn, hence the connection to the idea of weariness is patent. (Think also of the English adaptation, the word “chasm.”)
Il verbo latino fatisco (e fatiscor) significa accasciarsi, venir meno, lasciarci l’anima, e si dice anche delle cose materiali che si disfanno. L’attivo fatigo significa strapazzare, fiaccare, stancare a morte. L’avverbio affatim vale a perdilena.
Where does this take us? Faticare – he insisted – nel senso etimologico, esprime sempre cosa terribile o insopportabile.* These attributes, I infer, conversely may also apply to the nothingness arrived at towards the end of his sentence by Leopardi. What have they all in common? Depletion and vacuity. – Well, there’s no lack of that now, two hundred years after he noted his insight down. All our capitals of full of it. – To toil against the fate which would-be masters wish to impose on us too, itself inflicts exhaustion; terrible become the temptations to the negative (il nulla): avoided easily they are not.
* “Il lavoro” (i)
By way of response to this intuition of the nothingness reason induces, there would be much to say. But is speaking into such a void worth the effort? – To all that gapes ever more horribly open, the more the approach of its end is realised, an alternative still can be heard: a resoundingly reasonable pursuit, music.