“Son tutti morti”. Human Extinction and the Apocalyptic Imaginary in Giacomo Leopardi

This article investigates the speculations on and depictions of human extinction in Giacomo Leopardi’s writings, with particular emphasis on the Operette morali (1824–1832). It argues that Leopardi imagines human extinction as an anthropological thought-experiment that allows him to both re‑envision humans as biological beings and reimagine them as ephemeral entities in a larger system of change, which is the material universe. The perspective afforded by the Operette, which is paradoxically both anti-anthropocentric and obsessively focused on the investigation of human nature, reveals the non‑human as the privileged vantage point from which to contemplate human extinction and the end of the world. As Leopardi experiments with shifting points of view and timescales, the human perspective is decentered if not completely eliminated, in a shift that is as unsettling as it is liberating.