Leopardi and Habit: Poetry of Contingency and the ecological dimension of Inclination

Abstract

What is a habit and what is the role of habits in the process of poetic creation? Is a habit, for a poet, a kind of anaesthetising practice to be escaped from, or a resource to be relied upon in the composition of his or her poetry? The pivotal pages dedicated by Giacomo Leopardi within the Zibaldone to habitual dynamics and the notion of “assuefazione” provide an opportunity to focus on the connection between habits, creativity, and art. In particular, the aim of this paper is to bring to the fore – starting from the concept of habit – some specific aspects of Leopardi’s poetic praxis: the centrality of the element of contingency in artistic creation, the exercise of a poetical attention – oblique, not straight – to the things and events of the world (which, in the habituation process, becomes attention to circumstances and inclination towards everything that happens), the role of improvisational dynamics as the alter ego of habit.