L’Islandese e l’uomo di Us. Sulla rivisitazione del libro di Giobbe nel Dialogo della Natura e di un Islandese

Abstract

This essay intends to search out the deep bond but not sufficiently depth by the literary criticism between Giacomo Leopardi and the Book of Job. Particularly, analysing the most important dialogue of the Operette morali, the Dialogo della Natura e di un Islandese (Dialogue between the Nature and an Icelander), it seems there are several elements in common with it and the Book of Job: not only they are thematic, but also the plot is hardly the same. However, this relationship needs to be contextualized in the Leopardi’s philosophical thought and literary works, in order to understand completely the comparative study. Through the analysis of the Leopardi’s meaning of Nothingness and its relationship with another fundamental book of the Holy Bible, the Qoelet, it will be cleared how Leopardi reused the plot of the Book of Job in order to write the dialogue. The essay moreover will prove how the leopardian poetry is not definible as “atheistic” at all. At last, despite from the comparative study it seems that the two auctors are very similar, Leopardi has separated from the patriarch, looking for his existentialistic and philosophical way.