The Poems of Leopardi

Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837), translated by Frederick Townsend · 1887

Mostly iambic pentameter · 2,882 lines in 26 sections

The greatest Italian poet after Dante: the infinite, the broom on Vesuvius, and a clear-eyed despair.

Measured across the book

Across its 2,882 lines, 95% of stressed syllables fall on the beat (95% interval 95% to 96%). Alliteration runs at 0.92 times what shuffling the words would give (0.23 observed against 0.25 expected). 10% of the lines have a feminine ending.

Baselines and intervals are described in the methods.

Contents

About this text

Public domain. Text from The Poems of Leopardi, Project Gutenberg ebook #53020. Free to read, print, copy and reuse.

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