In Italian literature, what philosophical concept defines Giacomo Leopardi's 'pessimismo cosmico' as formulated in his Operette Morali and Canti?
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: C. Nature is an indifferent force causing suffering
- Step 1: In his cosmic pessimism phase, Leopardi viewed Nature not as a benevolent mother, but as a blind, indifferent mechanical force indifferent to human happiness and creator of suffering. Answer: Nature is an indifferent force causing suffering. Why not the others: The idea that misery is historical was his earlier 'pessimismo storico', and Leopardi explicitly rejected religious providence and naive positivist optimism.
Practise more Italian Classics, Literary Movements, and Grammar.
Free questions with an explanation for every one, and full timed Maturità / Esame di Stato (Italy) mock tests.
More Italian Classics, Literary Movements, and Grammar questions
- In Italian literature, which 14th-century work by Giovanni Boccaccio contains 100 novellas told by ten young people fleeing the Black Death?
- In Italian literature, which Renaissance political treatise by Niccolò Machiavelli argues that a ruler must combine the traits of the fox an…
- In Italian literature, which poetic metre is used by Ludovico Ariosto in Orlando Furioso and Torquato Tasso in Gerusalemme Liberata?
- In Italian literature, which 1827 historical novel by Alessandro Manzoni tells the story of two rural silk weavers, Renzo and Lucia, in 17th…
- In Italian literature, which pioneering Verismo novel by Giovanni Verga portrays the tragic downfall of a Sicilian fishing family in Aci Tre…
- In Italian literature, which playwright won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934 for modernist meta-theatrical dramas like Six Characters i…