"A me la vita è male": nota a Leopardi, Canto notturno v. 104

Leopardi owned, and frequently referred to in his early treatises, the writings of the French antiquarian, biblical scholar and linguist Samuel Bochart (1599-1677). It is likely that, as he was drafting his Canto not-turno, Leopardi had in mind a poem composed by Bochart in his youth: the first hemistich of v. 40 of Bochart’s elegy is clearly echoed in v. 104 of Leopardi’s Canto notturno, which retains both a Latinate structure and a word-for-word correspondence with its source.

Il v. 104 del Canto notturno, per la struttura latineggiante e la perfetta corrispondenza verbale potrebbe essere il calco del primo emistichio del v. 40 di un’elegia giovanile dell’antiquario, biblista e linguista francese Samuel Bochart (1599-1677). Leopardi, infatti, ne possiede le opere che cita frequentemente nei trattati giovanili.