Paralipomeni della Batracomiomachia (Canti I-II)

Published posthumously in Paris in 1842 (but a segment of the first canto had seen the light in Berlin in 1840), the Paralipomeni della Batrachomiomachia, which Giacomo Leopardi wrote and dictated in the last years of his life, are the continuation of the material of the pseudo-Homeric Batrachomiomachia. The ancient poem (3rd century b.C.), narration of the war, which lasted a single day, between mice and frogs (to which, in the last verses, the crabs bring help), was a parody of the classical epic genre, and enjoyed considerable success; Leopardi translated it three times.
Adopting the octave of the chivalric poem, the Paralipomeni stage the events of the conflict between mice and crabs (the frogs remain in the background), with frequent allusions to contemporary reality, to recent episodes, to important figures. Beyond the zoomorphic fiction, the mice would be the liberals, generous supporters of ideas of freedom and progress but, in essence, vainglorious and inconclusive; the crabs, the overwhelming forces of reaction, after the Congress of Vienna; the frogs, the papal militias, or the militias of the restored monarchies. The plot opens up to comic-fantastic digressions, to caricatural inserts, to philosophical and political reflections. Satire does not spare the dogmas of anthropocentrism and the providential vision of nature, the confident social reformism, the illusory myth of civilisation, the manifestations of spiritualist but also liberal thought. Once poorly appreciated by critics, or seen at most as a preparatory exercise for Ginestra’s very high poetry, the Paralipomeni (of which the first two cantos are presented here, which effectively alternate the various registers) occupy an important place in the framework of literary activity of the late Leopardi; the same physiognomy (eight cantos, exactly three thousand verses; ten times the Batracomiomachia) makes it a completely original and autonomous unicum.