Eugenio Montale is a poet Italy N born with Genoa the October 12th 1896 and died in Milan the September 12th 1981. It received the Nobel Prize of literature in 1975.

Life

The " roots; cachées" poetry of Montale

Eugenio Montale is born in Genoa the October 12th 1896, of a family of tradesmen in chemicals (the father was in particular supplier of the company Italo Svevo). Bianca Montale, a grand-daughter of the poet, outlines in these terms, in its Cronaca famigliare 1986, the characteristic features common to all the family:

“ anxiety, nervous brittleness, timidity, concision with the oral examination and the writing, a vision tending often to go at worst from any vicissitude, a certain direction of humor ”.
(Bianca Montale)

The last of six children, the Montale young person is delivered a little to itself and its melancholy, as it often arrives at the small last of a many phratry. It announces it itself in one of its talks:

“ We was an large family, my brothers went to the office, only my sister attended the university, for me it was out of the question. In much of families, there exists a tacit agreement according to which the junior is exempted to carry the reputation of the family high. ”
(Eugenio Montale) And, indeed, even if it is registered at the commercial technical Institute Vittorio Emmanuele (it passes its VAT, section commercial in 1915), Montale has any leisure to cultivate as it hears it his centers of interests, mainly literary, to attend the public libraries and to attend the private courses of philosophy of his Marianna sister.

Its education is thus typical of that of an autodidact, who discovers his vocation through a released course of any influence if it is not that which concerns its own will and its own limits. The Literature (Dante Alighieri initially) and the foreign languages are the privileged ground where imaginary the montalien anchors its first roots; with the panorama, still intact, of Eastern Ligurie: Monterosso Al Pond in the Cinque Ground, where the family spends the holidays.

Nothing special to add concerning the years of training of the poet, out the musical studies which it continues of 1915 to 1923 with the ex-baritone Eugenio Sivori. These studies leave him a sharp interest, even if surface, for the music.

Entered the Accademia militare of Parma, he asks to be sent on the face, and after a short experiment of the war in Vallarsa and Val Pusteria, he is released in 1920.

" Hard and essentielles" , as it defines its ground, the years of youth condition at Montale a vision of the world where the private feelings and the major and meticulous observation of few things prevail which surround it - Mediterranean nature and the women of the family. But, inside this “small world”, it is helped intellectually by a linguistic vein nourished by the untiring readings, most advantageous which one can wish: those which have of another ends only the only pleasure of knowledge and the discovery. And, in the same years where the name of Gabriele D' Annunzio resounds in all the peninsula, Montale with the chance to discover not only one vocation of poet, but a true dilection for poetry.

The “world” of Montale: ineffaceable suggestions of the Ligurie

Montale wrote relatively little: four collections the short lyric ones, a “book” of translations of poetry and books of translation in prose, two volumes of literary criticism and one of proses of fiction. It is necessary to add to that collaboration for the newspaper “Corriere beyond Will be”, and it is all. The framework is perfectly coherent with its experiment of the world at the time of its years of training, during which he writes the first poems of the collection Ossi di sepia . It is the moment of the rise of the Fascisme where it is insulated in the ligure province, a kind of clipper which will inspire a vision claustrophobic to him and impotent of the life of which it was not really aware, at least until the years of maturity, in the springtide of civil engagement neorealist.

The social marginalisation to which was condemned the social class, was cultivated and liberal, to which belonged its family, revives at the poet his vision of the world, his capacity to penetrate the impressions which are born from the presence of the natural phenomena: loneliness generates the dialog with the things, those small and unimportant of ligure nature, or that remote and suggestive of its horizon, the sea. A “stripped, hard, incredible” nature, and a “sea agitated” with the hypnotic call, as only the Mediterranean dazzled by the sun can cause it. In a life which appears already beaten before starting, nature inspires a feeling of major and essential dignity similar to that which one tests with the reading of his lyric poems.

Between silence and writing: the discrete nonconformism of the new poetry

With such a stock of literary knowledge and spiritual, Montale arrives at Florence in 1927 for the post of writer in the editor Bemporad. In the Tuscan city the previous years had been decisive for the birth of modern poetry, especially because of the openings of the culture florentine to all that arrived in Europe. Editions of the “Voce”; " Canti orfici " of Dino Campana (1914); first operas of Giuseppe Ungaretti for “Lacerba”; and the reception that poets like Vincenzo Cardarelli and Umberto Sheba had received in the editors florentins: all that had provided the foundations of a deep cultural renewal that even the fascistic censure could not choke. Montale thus enters silently, but with the impressive calling card of the edition of the “Ossi” of 1925, in the workshop of Italian poetry. In 1929 it has to direct the Gabinetto scientifico letterario G.P. Vieusseux (it will be expelled by it in 1938 by the Fascisme); meanwhile he collaborates in the review “Solaria”, he attends the literary meetings of the coffee “Giubbe Rose” by meeting there Carlo Emilio Gadda and Elio Vittorini, and he writes for almost all the new literary reviews which are born and die in these years of ceaseless poetic research.

The life with Florence continues for the poet between economic uncertainties and fragile sentimental reports/ratios; its “books of the life” are Dante and Svevo, with traditional American; innumerable others, he speaks only indirectly, through the traces left in his work. Until 1948, the year of its installation with Milan, it publishes the large poetic collections Occasioni and Bufera . Montale thus cultivated its clean poetic “vein” in the intimate and friendly atmosphere of a world of intellectuals whom Fascism condemns to a depressing silence, not by violence but rather by the crushing force of a conformism of mass which makes vain any attempt at revolt and mask the difference of that which does not want to adapt. In this insulation, work, the friendship and the intellectual exchange are nevertheless so deep and determining, that Franco Fortini can say that the poetry of Montale (in particular Ossi and Occasioni ) appears, starting from the Années 1960, like most important of all the twentieth Italian century.

The disharmonie of the world

" the argument of my poetry (…) is the human condition considered in oneself and not such or such historical event. That does not mean to keep away from what occurs in the world, that means only conscience and will not to exchange essence against the transient (…). Having felt as of my birth total a disharmonie with the reality which surrounded me, the matter of my inspiration could be only this disharmonie. "
(Eugenio Montale in " Confessioni di scrittori (Intervista idiot stessi) " , Milan 1976)

The ultimate stage of the short voyage of Montale in the world is Milan (of 1948 with its death). Become collaborator of the “Corriere beyond will be”, it writes criticisms musical and reports while going in several countries (amongst other things the the Middle East, visited at the time of the pilgrimage of the Pope Paul VI in Palestine. But “to travel” does not form part of imaginary poetic the montalien; it is not by chance that the anthology of its reports carries the title of “Fuori di put” (Out of at home) 1969. The world of Montale is “the loneliness lost in the dreams” (A. Marchese) of its Milanese apartment of the street Bigli. This poet, who sang the sea and last the woman-angel of Italian poetry, is “race of those which remain with ground”: it is infinite world, neither of the sea, nor sky, but the mystery indecipherable, and perhaps non-existent, daily objects which accompany disenchantment of a poet who does not want to claim himself tel.

The last collections of poems, Xenia (1966), Saturated (1971) and Diario LED '71 E LED '72 (1973), testify in a final way of the detachment of the poet - ironic, but never bitter - Life with a capital letter: “I thought early, and I still think, that art is the form of life of those which really do not live: a compensation or a substitute” (Montale, Intenzioni. Intervista immaginaria, Milan 1976). At the ligure poet these spirits of the “crisis converged” that the reaction anti D' Annunzio had generated since the Crepuscolari: all that had been written with a rebellious vein in the world swarming with Italian poetry between the two wars, becomes in him true and major poetry, the possible last before discovering other reasons to be poet. And paradoxically, the poet more lost in his dreams and “modest” of the twentieth Italian century, the most was also filled official recognitions: diplomas AD honorem (Milano 1961, Cambridge 1967, Roma 1974), named Senator with life in 1967 and Nobel Prize in 1975. In full civil debate on the need for the political commitment of the intellectuals, Montale continued to be the poet more read in Italy. The proof, perhaps, that the role of poetry forever be to give answers, but to change the glance on the world.

Works

The collections of worms present the evolution of its poetry: Ossi di sepia (1925); the occasioni (1939); Finisterre (1943); Quaderno di traduzioni (1948); will bufera It E altro (1956); Farfalla di Dinard (1956); Xenia (1966); Car da Fe (1966); Fuori di put (1969); Saturated (1971); Diario LED '71 E LED '72 (1973); Sulla poesia (1976); Quaderno di quattro anni (1977); Altri versi (1980); Diario Postumo (1996).

" Ossi di Seppia "

The first period of the poetry of Montale corresponds to the happy assertion of the lyric reason. Montale, in Ossi di sepia (1925) - cuttlebone -, leads to impossibility of explaining the existence: in the poem " Not chiederci the parola " he affirms that one can only say " what us " ne" sums not, which us " ne" let us want pas" , underlining, also thanks to the dryness of the poetic style, the roughness and the insignificance of the existential condition. The title even of work, a " correlative objectif" (Thomas Stearns Eliot), is significant to characterize the aridity of the human existence, consumed and used by the nature, and which from now on is reduced to an inanimate object, deprived of life.

Thus Montale upsets the fundamental attitude of poetry: the poet cannot find and give answers or certainty; on the destiny of the man, it falls what the poet, in the poem " Male Spesso it di vivere Ho incontrato" (Often I met the evil to live), " defines; Divine Indifference " , not to show any emotive complicity with regard to the man. The hard and essential warning (which seems to be born from the conflict between the crisis of the middle-class world and the need for new moral and philosophical parameters) finds its first image in the austere arid and naked ligure landscape, which takes care of a series of values almost metaphysics and of which the objects, the voices, the images, as also the feelings which are born with their contact, suggest in a mysterious and emblematic way, the key of reading of the human existence.

" Occasioni "

In Occasioni (1939) - Occasions - poetry is made of Symbole S, of Analogie S, limpid remote assertions of the abandonment and the discursive cordiality of the poets of the XIXe century. The poetic world of Montale appears afflicted, sinks, suffering, private of hope even if it is not in the negation, in fact, all that surrounds the poet is looked with pity and a measured compassion. the same memory, which already in the poem " Cigola carrucola LED pozzo" - The pulley of the well squeaks - (in Ossi di Seppia ) seems not to be able to be the possibility dreamed so much of escape from the existential tragedy, proves to be increasingly more transitory and évanescente, in particular in the poem " Not recidere forbice which volto" (And " dei Doganieri" put;. The publication date, on October 14th, 1939, shortly after the release of the second world war. If twenty years behind, at the time of the First World War, the poets had with them the poems of Giosuè Carducci and l'" Allegria di Naufragi" of Giuseppe_Ungaretti, now it will be the collection of Montale which will go in the bags to back (of the soldiers). Although one does not find allusions explicit, the soldiers transfer in his attitude passivates, almost absurd, a way to be followed. The collection of poetry is dedicated to a mysterious I.B., initial of the poetess Irma Brandeis, with which Montale maintained twenty years correspondances.
The memory is requested by some " occasions" of call, in particular take shape female figures (for example an young girl that it known on vacation has Monterosso, Annetta Arletta), news " Beatrices " to which it poet entrusts his hope. In particular in the " Mottetti" (Motets), small “canzoniere”, it clarifies this poetic stilnovist who became again with the mode by the intermediary also of Thomas Stearns Eliot and Ezra Pound. The figure of the woman, especially Clizia, name shown by Horace even if the representation of the woman comes from Dante, is continued by Montale through an image of Provence of the woman-angel, messenger of God. The features used to describe it are rare, and the desire is entirely sublimated by a vision of the love which takes a platonic form purely . " Occasions" are also the book of the saving phantasm, which often takes the form precisely image of the woman. But it is generally a remote presence, almost nona presence which involves at Montale the topic of the memory.
At the same time the language becomes less accessible and the messages are implied; Montale, however does not yield to the Hermétisme irrational and analogical, but reaffirms its own rational and moderately sentimental tension. In the Occasioni the sentence becomes freer and the philosophical reflection, which is the major quality of the poetry of Montale, becomes more rigorous. The poet seeks to penetrate the reasons of the life, the idea of death, impossibility of giving a valid explanation of the existence. Such thoughts were already present in the first collection, but without the deepening of the Occasioni , in which the world of the men replaces the deserted sea.

" Xenia "

In the last years, Montale looks further into its philosophy and became less held, as if it feared not to more have enough time " for all dire" , it is Montale of the continuous word of the last fifteen years of its life. With Xenia (1966) begins a collection of poetries dedicated to its late wife, Drusilla Tanzi, lovingly called " Mosca" - " Mouche" for thick glasses of its glasses. The title points out the XIII book of Martial, but also the " xenia" who in ancient Greece were the gifts made to the hosts, and who now would be thus the offerings with his wife. The same Montale year published the tests Auto da Fe - Autodafé - in the Corriere beyond will be , reflection lucid on the cultural transformations in progress.

The poetic one

Montale upset the fundamental attitude of poetry: the poet fear of giving answers. Montale knows that representative poetry does not have future, the poet is not more " prophète" and its poetry is made of " some syllables twisted and dry like a branche" (to quote " again; Not chiederci the parola").

Conscious that human knowledge cannot reach the absolute, not even thanks to the poetry, with which one tends par excellence to entrust the role of source of spiritual rise (what is the case, for example, of Giuseppe Ungaretti), written Montale of poetry so that it can be a kind of instrument/testimony of investigation of the existential condition of the man of the twentieth century. Contrary to allusions and the analogies of Ungaretti, Montale makes a full use of what was defined by T.S. Eliot " correlative objectif" : even the objects, the ideas, the emotions and the feelings vaguest appear correlated with well defined and concrete objects. Montale seeks a solution symbolic system in which the reality of the experiment is assumed like testimony of life. The " badly of vivre" , for example, in Ossi di sepia , " I often met the evil of vivre" , is defined like a " brook rétréci" (constrained in its course), a " break into leaf desiccated which recroqueville" , a " horse terrassé" and in the poem " To make the pale nap and pensif" , pertaining to the same collection, the aridity essential and significantly related to the " slits of the sol" , and the existential negativity lived by the man of the twentieth century tormented and destroyed by becoming to it historical, is seen like " a wall which has in its top of the sharp-edged shards of bouteille".

Poetry thus assumes the value of testimony and a precise moral value. Montale exalte the ethical stoicism of that which (a little like Julius Agricola, father-in-law of the Latin author Tacite, which is described in homonymous work) accomplished in any historical situation and policy its duty.

Works

The collections of worms present the evolution of its poetry: Ossi di sepia (1925), Occasioni (1939) Finisterre (1943) that the author presents like appendix of the Occasioni , the Bufera (1956). The first period of the poetry of Montale presents the assertion of lyricism, the second looks further into the expression and poetic reasons introduced into Ossi di sepia even if sometimes the recourse to certain techniques levels the artificiality. Montale tried to define a phantasm able to make feel a whole hidden world.

In Occasioni , poetry is made symbols, analogies, limpid statements very different from the abandonment and cordial speech of the poets of the 19th century. The poetic world of Montale seems sorry, obscure and suffering, private of hope without being able from there to deny it, indeed all that surrounds the poet is looked with pity and compassion. At Montale connect it dryness of feeling is rather an awakening of the pain which lives the memory and it corresponds to a virile refusal of languor and musical quality of the twilight Poètes. The poetry of Montale is an interior chronicle, it is the voice of the contemporary age. Montale expresses concerns of the period which precedes the Second world war, of the war, of the so difficult recovery, and its life is the faithful reflection of its poetic art and its ethics.

External bonds

• very complete on its poetic works with some pages in French

• card in English
• Michel Cassac: '' Eugenio Montale, philosopher of the Whole and his opposite ''
• very summary card

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