unfeelingness

Caesar outlines the basic familial and social coordinates of Leopardi's life--the isolation, the scholarly expectations of his father, his mother's icy rationality and unfeelingness in the name of religion, the developing physical deformation of a hunchback and crooked spine, all of which resulted in extensive periods of melancholia and introspection that led to the prodigious classical scholarship and philosophical acumen that are reflected in the Zibaldone, as well as the great outbursts of lyrical poetry and "the radicalization of his reflection on existence" (xxvi).

The "world" part of her project is not inappropriate, however, because her life is connected not only to the world history she writes about in her books on important historical figures but also to momentous history that influenced her personal life, especially World War 11 but also the postwar Soviet domination of Eastern Europe: "Moon Tiger is conscious of itself as a story of history, of personal relations in great historical events, and the unfeelingness of history to those relations and the characters involved" (Dukes 89).

It is not true, therefore, that the professors of the Hebrew faith were always exhibited on our early stage as monsters of unfeelingness and brutality as they were drawn by Shakespeare in his 'Merchant of Venice' and by Marlowe in his 'Rich Jew of Malta'.