Editing Giacomo Leopardi (section)

===The ''Idilli'' (1819–1821)===
The six ''Idilli'' ("Idylls"), namely ''Il sogno'' ("The dream"), ''L'Infinito'' ("The Infinite"), ''La sera del dì di festa'' ("The evening of the feast day"), ''Alla Luna'' ("To the Moon"), ''La vita solitaria'' ("The solitary life") and ''Lo spavento notturno'' ("Night-time terror"), followed hard upon the first canti. ''Il sogno'' is still [[Petrarch]]esque, while the others which followed are the fruit of a more mature and independent art. Leopardi establishes with nature a sort of accord which attenuates the pain and discomfort.

In all of the idylls, the initial sparks, offered by memory or by the sweetness of nature, transmute their colours into the intuition of universal pain, of the transience of things, of the oppressive weight of eternity, of the inexorable passing of time, of the blind power of nature.

====''L'Infinito''====
[[File:Infinito.jpg|thumb|right|Original manuscript of ''L'Infinito'']]

{{original research inline|date=June 2013}} The highest expression of poetry is reached in Leopardi in ''[[L'Infinito (poem)|L'Infinito]]'', which is at once philosophy and art, since in the brief harmony of the verses are concentrated the conclusions of long philosophical meditations. The theme is a concept, which the mind can only with extreme difficulty conceive. The poet narrates an experience he often has when he sits in a secluded place on a hill. His eyes cannot reach the horizon, because of a hedge surrounding the site; his thought, instead, is able to imagine spaces without limits:

<poem style="padding: 1em;">"Sempre caro mi fu quest'ermo colle,
E questa siepe, che da tanta parte
Dell'ultimo orizzonte il guardo esclude."</poem>

Another interpretation suggests that this hill represents the heights human thought achieves, but at the top, there is a hedge that prevents one from seeing the ultimate horizon, beyond death and existence. Thus this hedge can be interpreted as signifying the limits of human understanding regarding human existence in the Universe. This is why the poem begins with "Sempre caro mi fu" which can be translated as "It was always precious for me". The silence is deep; when a breath of wind comes, this voice sounds like the voice of present time, and by contrast, it evokes all times past, and eternity. Thus, the poet's thought is overwhelmed by new and unknown suggestions, but "il naufragar m'è dolce in questo mare" ("shipwreck / seems sweet to me in this sea." English translation by [[A. S. Kline]]).