Nell’alveo dell’immaginazione: Leopardi e Nietzsche tra poesia e filosofia

This essay explores the intellectual dialogue between Giacomo Leopardi and Friedrich Nietzsche, focusing on the central role of imagination in their thought. It examines Nietzsche’s changing response to Leopardi, from early admiration to later criticism, and traces the persistence of Leopardi’s influence beneath this apparent break. For both thinkers, imagination is not opposed to knowledge but helps produce it, allowing poetry and philosophy to converge. The comparison reveals imagination as a creative and interpretative power, essential to human knowledge and experience. It also highlights its vital function: by giving form and value to reality, imagination makes life — and the pursuit of happiness — possible.