Ovidio, Leopardi e l'arte di dipingere con le parole

Leopardi quotes Ovid many times to debate important poetic topics like vividness and imagination. The Latin poet is criticized for the meticulousness and artificiality of his descriptions that bore the readers. Another thing is the ‘pictorial style’ that must involve the reader in the creation of the images. To formulate his opinion on Ovid, Leopardi takes on categories and terms of ancient stylistics gleaned from the Longinus’s Sublime and the Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria.