Tameson Leann Darden

Title: The Village Saturday Night
By: Giacomo Leopardi
From: www.poemhunters.com

The damsel from the field returns,
The sun is sinking in the west;
Her bundle on her head she sets,
And in her hand she bears
A bunch of roses and of violets.
To-morrow is a holiday,
And she, as usual, must them wear
Upon her bodice, in her hair.
The old crone sits among her mates,
Upon the stairs, and spins;
And, looking at the fading light,
Of good old-fashioned times she prates,
When she, too, dressed for holidays,
And with light heart, and limb as light,
Would dance at night
With the companions of her merry days.
The twilight shades around us close,
The sky to deepest blue is turned;
From hills and roofs the shadows fall,
And the new moon her face of silver shows.
And now the cheerful bell
Proclaims the coming festival.
By its familiar voice
How every heart is cheered!
The children all in troops,
Around the little square
Go, leaping here and there,
And make a joyful sound.
Meanwhile the ploughman, whistling, returns
Unto his humble nest,
And thinks with pleasure of his day of rest.

Then, when all other lights are out,
And all is silent round,
The hammer's stroke we hear,
We hear the saw of carpenter,
Who with closed doors his vigil keeps,
Toils o'er his lamp and strives so hard,
His work to finish ere the dawn appear.

The dearest day of all the week
Is this, of hope and joy so full;
To-morrow, sad and dull,
The hours will bring, for each must in his thought
His customary task-work seek.

Thou little, sportive boy,
This blooming age of thine
Is like to-day, so full of joy;
And is the day, indeed,
That must the sabbath of thy life precede.

Enjoy, it, then, my darling child,
Nor speed the flying hours!
I say to thee no more:
Alas, in this sad world of ours,
How far exceeds the holiday,
The day that goes before! 




This child represents the childish hope and excitement towards the party.

Biographical information about the poet:

Giacomo Leopardi was born in a small provincial town called Recanati, Italy. He lived in a family full of aristocrats, but still got extensive tutoring under private priests, making him very thirsty for knowledge and showed his talents. As an adolescent he was sickly and stayed in his father's library and read many books immersing himself in classic and philological knowledge. He fluently read and write in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. He began to write his first book at the age 14 about philologic knowledge till 1816, after that he had a turning point ad began to write poetry.

 

Poem Analysis:

This poem is about getting ready for a party to celebrate life and makes people no matter how old feel young again because of the excitement. Light is a symbol that shows happiness and love towards the party, and seeing all of their relative. The speaker is a women talking to her children getting them excited to have their first party. She compares her very first experience and how much fun it was with her kids youth and excitement to other childhood things. The figurative language that is used is personification, they use this to explain the excitement in "kids" language. "The sky to deepest blue is turned; From hills and roofs the shadows fall, And the new moon her face of silver shows." Using personification here makes it so kids get more

excited about it cause they think of the moon as a person or thing they can talk to. When reading this the way they would cut lines short is what it seemed like but with reading it multiple times I see that the stanza division is on purpose. When she wanted you to take a breather and think about what you just read she would put a split or end that stanza. The tone of this poem is very excited and happy . The way it starts is slightly sad because they have to think about how they have to wait till tomorrow to have the party. As the day goes on the get excited about the party and had fun getting ready for the party which was described as fun and descriptive as the party itself. No matter how old you get you will still have something to make you as excited as you were about it when you were a child.