Le conseguenze del disamore nel Discorso sopra lo stato presente dei costumi degli Italiani di Giacomo Leopardi

In writing the unfinished Discorso sopra lo stato presente del costume degli Ita- liani, Leopardi shows, in a fairly obvious manner, a satirical attitude; at the origin of his thoughts on «the character of the Italians» it appears, in a less obvious manner, a profound comic relation- ship with the language; finally, the interpretative key with which Leopardi traces a pitiless but amusing portrait of a People, is even less visible: it is the excess of «Self-love», which has reduced the Italians to blindness and anesthesia while avoiding any social costume, nor for solidarity nor for convenience.