Eugenio Montale (Italian:[euˈdʒɛːnjomonˈtaːle]; 12 October 1896 – 12 September 1981) was an Italian poet, prose writer, editor and translator. In 1975, he was awarded theNobel Prize in Literature "for his distinctive poetry which, with great artistic sensitivity, has interpreted human values under the sign of an outlook on life with no illusions."[1]
Montale was born inGenoa, the son of Giuseppina Ricci and Domenico Montale, a businessman who ran a chemical products company. Montale was the youngest of six children, including five brothers and a sister.[2]
Montale attended elementary school in Genoa. The Montale family spent their summers at their villa inMonterosso al Mare, and the landscapes of theLigurian region would go on to inspire his poetry.[3][4] In 1911, he was enrolled at a technical college and graduated with a diploma in accountancy in 1915.[2] In the same year, he began taking music lessons with baritone Ernesto Sivori. However, his time as an infantryman in World War I and the death of Sivori in 1923 caused him to abandon his career in music and turn to poetry instead.[5][6]
Montale was largely self-taught.[citation needed] Growing up, his imagination was caught by several writers, includingDante Alighieri, and by the study of foreign languages (especially English).
Montale wrote more than ten anthologies of short lyrics, a journal of poetry translation, plus several books of prose translations, two books of literary criticism, and one of fantasy prose.[citation needed] Alongside his imaginative work he was a constant contributor to Italy's most important newspaper, theCorriere della Sera, for which he wrote a huge number of articles on literature, music, and art.[citation needed] He also wrote a foreword to Dante's "The Divine Comedy", in which he mentions the credibility of Dante, and his insight and unbiased imagination.[citation needed] In 1925 he was a signatory to theManifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals. Montale's own politics inclined toward the liberalism ofPiero Gobetti andBenedetto Croce.[7][8] He contributed to Gobetti's literary magazineIl Baretti.[9]
Montale's work, especially his first poetry collectionOssi di seppia ("Cuttlefish Bones"), which appeared in 1925, shows him as an antifascist who felt detached from contemporary life and found solace and refuge in the solitude of nature.[citation needed]
Montale moved toFlorence in 1927 to work as an editor for the publisherBemporad. Florence was the cradle of Italian poetry of that age, with works like theCanti orfici byDino Campana (1914) and the first lyrics byUngaretti for the reviewLacerba. Other poets likeUmberto Saba andVincenzo Cardarelli had been highly praised. In 1929 Montale was asked to be chairman of theGabinetto Vieusseux Library, a post from which he was expelled in 1938 by the fascist government. By this time Montale's poetry was a reaction against the literary style of the fascist regime.[10] He collaborated with the magazineSolaria, and (starting in 1927) frequented the literary café LeGiubbe Rosse ("Red Jackets") on thePiazza Vittoria (now Piazza della Repubblica). Visiting the café often several times a day, he became a central figure among a group of writers there, includingCarlo Emilio Gadda,Arturo Loria andElio Vittorini (all founders of the magazine).[11] He wrote for almost all the important literary magazines of the time.[citation needed]
Though hindered by financial problems and the literary and social conformism imposed by the authorities, in Florence, Montale published his finest anthology,Le occasioni ("Occasions", 1939). From 1933 to 1938 he had a love relationship withIrma Brandeis, a Jewish-American scholar of Dante who occasionally visited Italy for short periods. After falling in love with Brandeis, Montale represented her as amediatrix figure like Dante'sBeatrice.Le occasioni contains numerous allusions to Brandeis, here called Clizia (asenhal).Franco Fortini judged Montale'sOssi di seppia andLe occasioni the high-water mark of 20th centuryItalian poetry.[citation needed]
T.S. Eliot, who shared Montale's admiration for Dante, was an important influence on his poetry at this time; in fact, the new poems of Eliot were shown to Montale byMario Praz, then teaching in Manchester. The concept of theobjective correlative used by Montale in his poetry, was probably influenced by T. S. Eliot. In 1948, for Eliot's sixtieth birthday, Montale contributed a celebratory essay entitled "Eliot and Ourselves" to a collection published to mark the occasion.[12]
From 1948 to his death, Montale lived in Milan. After the war, he was a member of the liberalPartito d'Azione.[13] As a contributor to theCorriere della Sera he was music editor and also reported from abroad, including Israel, where he went as a reporter to followPope Paul VI's visit there. His works as a journalist are collected inFuori di casa ("Out of Home", 1969).
La bufera e altro ("The Storm and Other Things") was published in 1956 and marks the end of Montale's most acclaimed poetry. Here his figure Clizia is joined by La Volpe ("the Fox"), based on the young poetMaria Luisa Spaziani with whom Montale had an affair during the 1950s. However, this volume also features Clizia, treated in a variety of poems as a kind of bird-goddess who defies Hitler. These are some of his greatest poems.[citation needed]
His later works areXenia (1966),Satura (1971) andDiario del '71 e del '72 (1973). Montale's later poetry is wry and ironic, musing on the critical reaction to his earlier work and on the constantly changing world around him.Satura contains a poignant elegy to his wifeDrusilla Tanzi. He also wrote a series of poignant poems about Clizia shortly before his death. Montale's fame at that point had extended throughout the world. He had received honorary degrees from the Universities of Milan (1961),Cambridge (1967),Rome (1974), and had been namedSenator-for-Life in the Italian Senate. In 1973 he was awarded theGolden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings inStruga,SR Macedonia.[14] In 1975 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature.[citation needed]
In 1996, a work appeared calledPosthumous Diary (Diario postumo) that purported to have been 'compiled' by Montale before his death, with the help of the young poet Annalisa Cima; the criticDante Isella thinks that this work is not authentic.[16]Joseph Brodsky dedicated his essay "In the Shadow of Dante" to Eugenio Montale's lyric poetry.[citation needed]
Each year links to its corresponding "[year] in literature" or "[year] in poetry" article:
1925:Ossi di seppia ("Cuttlefish Bones"), first edition; second edition, 1928, with six new poems and an introduction byAlfredo Gargiulo; third edition, 1931, Lanciano: Carabba[11]
1932:La casa dei doganieri e altre poesie, a chapbook of five poems published in association with the award of the Premio del Antico Fattore to Montale; Florence: Vallecchi[11]
1939:Le occasioni ("The Occasions"), Turin: Einaudi[11]
1943:Finisterre, a chapbook of poetry, smuggled into Switzerland byGianfranco Contini; Lugano: the Collana di Lugano (24 June); second edition, 1945, Florence: Barbèra[11]
1948:Quaderno di traduzioni, translations, Milan: Edizioni della Meridiana[11]
1948:La fiera letteraria poetry criticism
1956:La bufera e altro ("The Storm and Other Things"), a first edition of 1,000 copies, Venice: Neri Pozza; second, larger edition published in 1957, Milan: Arnaldo Mondadore Editore[11]
1956:Farfalla di Dinard, stories, a private edition[11]
1962:Satura, poetry, published in a private edition, Verona: Oficina Bodoni[11]
1962:Accordi e pastelli ("Agreements and Pastels"), Milan: Scheiwiller (May)[11]
1966:Il colpevole
1966:Auto da fé: Cronache in due tempi, cultural criticism, Milan: Il Saggiatore[11]
1966:Xenia, poems in memory of Mosca, first published in a private edition of 50[11]
1996:Il secondo mestiere: Arte, musica, società andIl secondo mestierre: Prose 1929–1979, a two-volume edition including all of Montale's published writings; edited by Giorgio Zampa; Milan: Mondadori[11]
1998:Satura : 1962–1970 / trans. with notes, byWilliam Arrowsmith (New York, Norton).
