Poesia, o la seconda natura. Negri e Leopardi: “una teoria materialistica dell’immaginazione”

In Lenta Ginestra (1987), Antonio Negri reinterprets Giacomo Leopardi's poetry through a materialistic lens, emphasizing the role of imagination as a transformative force. Negri argues that Leopardi’s work should not be confined to static, nostalgic interpretations but rather seen as an active, evolving engagement with the present. He conceptualizes the "second nature" in Leopardi’s work as the artificial structures shaping human existence, which the imagination can disrupt and reconstitute. For Negri, poetry is not an escape from material reality but a means to break its limitations and create new forms of meaning, thus presenting imagination as a material, collective power that reshapes the world.