The Beauty Between the Ephemeral and the Perpetual: Aesthetic Reflections in Keats' “Ode on a Grecian Urn” and Leopardi's “Wild Broom”

Authors

  • Lucas Gabriel Collantes Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades

Keywords:

European romanticism, Keats, Leopardi, beauty, ephemerality perpetuity

Abstract

The following paper aims to approach, in a comparative and hermeneutical way, the poems “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1820) by John Keats and “Wild Broom Or the Flower of the Desert” (1836) by Giacomo Leopardi, focusing on the literary pairing of ephemerality and perpetuity. Based on the comparison of literary resources, imagery and recurrent topics that construct these pairings, we hypothesize that, while Keats  deals with a relatively imperishable object, Leopardi composes his canto about a flower that will eventually die;  beauty is presented differently, depending on whether it is something eternal and ideal or a less monumental and more fleeting beauty. Based on a poetic analysis and a theoretical contribution, we intend to compare the different aesthetic considerations which are inherent in each poem and author.

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References

Burgess, A. (1983). Capítulo 17: Los románticos: Keats. En Literatura Inglesa. Ed. Alhambra. Versión española a cargo de Fernando Toda (pp. 183-84).

Jauss, H. R. (1995). El arte como anti-naturaleza: el cambio estético después de 1789. En Las transformaciones de lo moderno. La balsa de la Medusa (pp. 105-134).

Keats, J. (2019). “Oda a una Urna Griega”. Trad. de Martin Triana. Disponible en: https://letralia.com/articulos-y-reportajes/2019/08/02/oda-a-una-urna-griega-john-keats/

Leopardi, G. (1968). Nota introductoria. En Giacomo Leopardi Poesía y Prosa. A cargo de María Cristina Giambelluca de Morales (pp. 5-6). Biblioteca Básica Universal.

Leopardi, G. (1982). Canto XXXIV: La Retama o La flor del desierto. En Cantos. Ediciones Orbis, Hyspamerica S. A. (pp. 136-145).

Petronio, Giuseppe (1990). Capítulo IV: Giacomo Leopardi. En Historia de la Literatura Italiana. Trad. de Diego Navarro (pp. 666-690). Ed. Cátedra.

Vossler, K. (1930). Capítulo IX: Giacomo Leopardi y los clásicos. En Historia de la Literatura Italiana (pp. 155-157). Biblioteca de Iniciación Cultural. Colección Labor.

Published

2023-12-15

How to Cite

Collantes, L. G. (2023). The Beauty Between the Ephemeral and the Perpetual: Aesthetic Reflections in Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn” and Leopardi’s “Wild Broom”. Nota Al Margen, 1(2), 88–99. Retrieved from https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/notalmargen/article/view/42484

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