Further Observations on the “Lonely Hill”

In a recently published article which appeared in this very Journal, Emilio Servadio (1991) carried out a psychoanalytic reading of Leopardi's L'infinito based on what is known of the poet's life and character. Servadio wondered whether it was not “going too far to intepret the ‘ermo colle’ as the mother's breast, which confers an ineffable sweetness on all existence?”. With all due respect, I would like to take issue with Servadio and suggest that far from being too adventurous, such an interpretation suffers, if anything, from the opposite defect: the Author runs no risk of being proved wrong (nor does he find any possibility of being proved right …). In fact we have the right to expect interpretations to be “a conjecture which awaits examination, confirmation or rejection” (Freud 1937). Thus we are entitled to wonder whether the hypothesis “lonely hill = mother's breast” fulfills the criteria that Freud (who is surprisingly “Popperian” in this respect!) required of interpretive constructions. In the reader of Leopardi's text, the above-mentioned formula should produce a surprise by way of confirmation (“I hadn't thought of that”) and this should enhance our understanding of the text and make it seem more relevant to us. Alternatively we might reject this hypothesis, which would be a first sign of resistance, or again we might display complete and lasting indifference, which