Analysis of Imitation

Count Giacomo Leopardi 1798 (Recanati) – 1837 (Naples)



Wandering from the parent bough,
Little, trembling leaf,
Whither goest thou?
'From the beech, where I was born,
By the north wind was I torn.
Him I follow in his flight,
Over mountain, over vale,
From the forest to the plain,
Up the hill, and down again.
With him ever on the way:
More than that, I cannot say.
Where I go, must all things go,
Gentle, simple, high and low:
Leaves of laurel, leaves of rose;
Whither, heaven only knows!'


Scheme ABACCDEFGHHIIJJ
Poetic Form
Metre 10010101 101001 1011 1011111 1011111 1110011 1010101 1010101 1010101 1110101 1111101 1111111 1010101 1110111 1010101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 429
Words 84
Sentences 6
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 15
Lines Amount 15
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 328
Words per stanza (avg) 81
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

24 sec read
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Count Giacomo Leopardi

Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi was an Italian philosopher, poet, essayist, and philologist. He is considered the greatest Italian poet of the nineteenth century and one of the most important figures in the literature of the world, as well as one of the principals of literary romanticism; his constant reflection on existence and on the human condition—of sensuous and materialist inspiration—has also earned him a reputation as a deep philosopher. He is widely seen as one of the most radical and challenging thinkers of the 19th century but routinely compared by Italian critics to his older contemporary Alessandro Manzoni despite expressing "diametrically opposite positions." Although he lived in a secluded town in the conservative Papal States, he came into contact with the main ideas of the Enlightenment, and through his own literary evolution, created a remarkable and renowned poetic work, related to the Romantic era. The strongly lyrical quality of his poetry made him a central figure on the European and international literary and cultural landscape. more…

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