The Writer and Commitment. In a radio interview released in 1951 (now reads poetry, 1976) Montale spoke, among other things, the relationship between the profession of civil commitment writer. It was a theme that Montale was treated in several poems.
Malaise DEPEND ON THE STORY. In this interview Montale argued that poetry is not about current events, but the human condition as a whole, which is independent of historical circumstances. In fact, described his poetry as the expression of a feeling of inadequacy with regard to the reality of problems in life independent of the story.
"The subject of my poetry (and I think every poem) is the human condition considered in itself: not this or that event history. This is not a matter of what happens in the world: it just means consciousness and will, not to exchange with the bulk transition. I was not indifferent to what happened in the last thirty years, but I can not say if the facts were different, even my poetry would have a totally different face (...). Having heard from birth a total disharmony with the reality that surrounded me, the matter of my inspiration that could only be disharmony. I do not deny that fascism first, the war later, and still later the civil war has made me unhappy, but there were reasons for unhappiness in me that went far beyond and outside of these phenomena. "
Since the dawn of the century is discussed
if poetry is in or out. First
won the inside, then fought back hard
the outside and after years come to pass in a lump sum
that can not last because the outside
is armed to the teeth
(from Notebook of four years, 1977)
LA POETRY IS NOT MADE FOR ANYONE. During the years when he was alive the debate on the autonomy of culture, Montale expressed in this poem for his distrust of ideologies that claim to the political commitment of the artists.
Asor
Asor, nice name (its retrograde
is the most beautiful flower)
not love poetry privately.
He has good reason or would be if the story
produce a quid
affinity or similar substance, which is unfortunately not the case.
Poetry is not for anyone,
not for others and even for those who write them.
Why born? It does not come at all and therefore
was never born. He's like a stone
or a grain of sand.
will end with all the rest. Is it late or soon will tell
eschatology, the fatal
mystagogue who was born in one birth
over time - and it abhors.
(in Diary of '72)
THE RIGHT TO BE DIFFERENT. If you deny the right of the artist maintain an individual position is eventually denied the right to diversity, all claiming to make "normal", follow the rules, were also those of the best political systems:
"The possibility of a better future of this company is not at all contemptible, but it is a political-economic hypothesis (...). I also believe that forecasts are not possible in place that deal with art in a society better than ours. Plato banned the poets from the Republic: in some countries we know are banished poets who take care of their affairs (ie poetry), instead of collective facts of their society (...). It is possible to conceive a world in which the welfare and normalcy of the most all'inadattamento let loose and the failure of the tiny minority. In any case, this optimistic perspective leaves unresolved the conflict between the individual and society. It also suggested that the disagreement can be resolved by military force (with force), eliminating the unfit person. What seems rather unlikely and unprovable is automatic - or quick-coming of a golden age (the arts) as soon as it has changed the social structure. "
the normality of the better world. " The distrust of Montale to "normality" of that "better world" that should be the object of poetry is the theme of The Hunt:
It is said that the poet must go
in search of its contents.
It is also stated that its prey
must correspond to what happens in the world
contrary to what would be a world that was better.
But in the world can be worse impallinare
some other hunter or a battery chicken
escaped from the cage. As for the best
there is no need
poets. We are all free range.
(from Diary of '72)
POET CAN NOT GIVE DIRECTIONS. In first of its collections, Ossi di sepia (1925), Montale thus expressed no confidence in the power of the word, the idea that the poet can speak on the reality or give indications: Do not ask
the word squares on each side
our minds without form, and letters of fire
the state and shine like a crocus
lost in the middle of a dusty field.
Ah man who goes safely,
to others and to himself a friend, his shadow
not care that the heat wave
print on a crumbling wall!
not ask the formula to open your worlds,
yes some wrong syllable and dry as a branch.
Codest only now we can tell,
what we are, what we do not want.
paraphrase and notes. Even this poem, I like lemons, contains a declaration of poetics, especially from the formal point of view.
The poet speaks to man in general. Long accustomed to the habit of receiving messages from poets-served and considered masters of life, and tells him that he is anything but a poet-prophet: it is only an isolated individual, as are all men, and feel lost in a world incomprehensible and indecipherable. Compared to others, he only has the courage to bend evil to live with dignity, without indulging in fantasies and illusions consoling, and without assuming the pose of the teacher or prophet.
not ask (or man) the word, that the verses that apply to teams, to shape rigorously from all our formless soul, confused and chaotic, or those that apply to reveal clearly, unambiguously (in letters of fire ) (the nature) and are wonderful as the (yellow flower) cross, which stands all alone in a dusty field.
The second verse has an exclamation ambiguous tone, which may denote wonder, envy or pity toward those who, unlike him, has no agonizing existential questions and believe they have certainties.
Ah, I admire (or envy or committed) the man who is confident, believe in others and in himself and does not reflect on the precariousness of human life, symbolized by his shadow, which gives the heat on a crumbling wall .
(So) do not ask (or man) returns to repeat the poet - the magic formula that can give new certainties unravel the mysteries of life and the universe, but only a few wrong syllable, hard, harsh, dry as a branch ( which is most appropriate to express our despair and our desolation).
Therefore, today we can say only one thing: what we are, what we do not want (or aspects negative and those of our human condition as negative history).
lack of communication. Words can not communicate the secret of life sentence:
I know the hour when his face impassive as
is crossed by a cruel grimace
hath been revealed for a penalty just invisible. This
not see people in the crowded course.
you, my words, betrayed the bite
secreted in vain, the wind that blows in the heart.
The real reason is most of those who keep silent.
sobbing chant is a song of peace.
(from Ossi di sepia)
THE IMPORTANCE OF DIFFICULTY FOR THE POET. In an article published in the Gazzetta del Popolo "in 1931 (now reads poetry, 1976) Montale wrote that, contrary to what the poets thought liberals, the" obstacles "and" tricks "(eg, rhyme ) are important for poetry: "there can be no poetry without artifice."
EMOTIONS transforms into objects. The work of the poet on his subject, the words, must come to make concrete emotions correlate to objects: "The poet must not only pour out his feelings, but should also work on its own, minutes, up to a certain point, give the intuition that Eliot calls an objective correlative. (Note: The Poetics Objective-relation was developed around 1920 by the Anglo-American poet Thomas Stearns Eliot: differs from symbolism to the importance he attached to physical objects and therefore the intensity with which they impose upon the reader, evoking his emotions). Only when he reached this stage there is poetry, and leaves an echo, self-obsession. "
the importation of objects. In an interview sull'ermetismo released in 1940 (now reads the poems) Montale stated this idea, arguing that the work of the 'new poet' is important trend "toward the object to hit the art, embodied in the medium, the passion to become something."
EVIL TO LIVE. An example of this poetry is a poem that is part of the collection Ossi di sepia (1925), in which the emotion (anxiety, the pain of living) is connected to a series of objects:
often the bane of I met live:
was strangled gurgling brook,
was the wrapping of the leaf
parched, was the horse fell.
Well I did not know, outside of the miracle that unfolds
Divine Indifference:
was the statue of sleepiness
of noon, and the cloud, and the hawk lifted high.
paraphrase and notes. The poet speaks to man in general, used to receive messages from long tradition and poets-served to consider them masters of life, and tells him
things and words. The importance for items and care for the words that they should make concrete is an important feature of the poetry of Montale (for the attention to things and words Pascoli is in fact the poet who has opened the way to the poetry of the twentieth century ).
Poetry "Lemons" (which opens its first collection Ossi di sepia) said the focus on things common and mild aversion to the claim that poets have the social recognition of a public and solemn (graduates) and the words chosen only for their literary importance and not for the things you suggest.
things simple and concrete, like lemons, are living emotions (feelings related to the colors, smells, songs, light and heat of the sun), gives the impression (which turns out to be an immediate " illusion ") to be able to unravel at any moment the" secret "of the world, of life (it would be to discover what is the 'wrong', because the feeling of inadequacy with respect to the reality from which the poetry of Montale).
Lemons
Listen to me, the poet laureate
only move between plants
whose names are rare: boxwood or privet acanthus.
I, for myself, I love the roads to grassy ditches where puddles
half dried Clutching a few emaciated boys anguilla:
lanes which run along the ridge. drop between the clumps of reeds
to the orchards, among the lemon trees.
Better if the clamor of birds
go out from light swallowed:
clearer listening to the whispering of friendly branches
in the air that almost does not move, and feelings of
's that he does not know
off the ground and it rains in my heart sweetness restless. Here
of passions is
miraculously silent war.
here is up to us our share of poor wealth
and the smell of lemons.
You see, in these silences where things
give themselves, seem to betray their final secret
We may be about to discover a mistake of Nature,
the dead the world, the ring will not hold,
the disentangling thread that finally we
put in the middle of a truth.
gaze rummages around,
mind disintegrates
of perfume overflowing
the day when most languishes.
was the silence in which we see in every shadow
departing human
some disturbed Divinity.
But the illusion fails and brings us back time
noisy cities where the blue shows
in patches only, high up between the roofs.
The rain tires the land, then; s'affolta
tedium on houses,
light turns miserly - the greedy soul.
one day, a door malchiuso
among the trees of a court
we show the yellow of the lemons
and ice melts the heart, chest and
us roar their songs
the horns of the golden sunshine.
paraphrase is COMMENT: The Lemons. It is particularly significant for a poem about the poetry of Montale here which states categorically reject the traditional courtly poetry, and love the harsh and discordant aspects of reality, those graduates would find that the poets unpoetic and not worth even a glance. And instead of even the most modest to as the sudden sight of yellow lemons in the tedium of a winter day, can offer a moment of joy to the spirit, the intuition of some truth.
The poem is divided into two parts. The first (vv. 1-21) is purely descriptive and depicts a kind of rough and rugged landscape of Liguria, dear to the poet.
The poet laureate-he says-that is officially recognized as deserving of poetic glory (with particular reference to D'Annunzio), if they talk about plants, love to cite those who names are rare, such as boxwood, privet and the acanthus.
I, for my part, I love the roads that lead into grassy ditches, where puddles drained half the guys grab a few small eels: (I also love) the paths along the edges of ditches (embankments) and drop between the clumps of reeds, place in the gardens, among the lemon trees.
is preferable (to be here in the evening), when the deafening chants (din,) as the birds no longer absorbed from light (the sky), then there is the most distinguished friends of the branches rustling in the air that is almost immobile , and (most distinct there is) the perception of smell (of nature), which is detached from the earth and sends down the soul, like a rain, a gentle anxious.
Here (in this atmosphere of peace) is appeased, for miracle, the impact of everyday passions are being misused in the other direction, here (in these rugged landscapes) for us poor people is our share of wealth offered by the smell of lemons.
The second part (verses 22-end) is purely reflexive. The poet pauses to observe aspects of reality to find a passage that leads him to uncover the mystery of nature. It's an illusion that does not last long, but it can renew itself in the most unexpected moments, for example, when, suddenly, in the chill of winter, a courtyard there appear yellow lemons, giving us a moment of rare excitement.
In the silence of these places, where things start (to us) and seem to want to reveal their core, sometimes it is hoped to discover a passage through which we can know the mystery of nature. The poet uses metaphors to emphasize the four excruciating anxiety of knowledge: he hopes to discover the mistake of Nature, the dead center of the world, upset the balance for a universal ring that does not take longer to unravel the thread that put us in contact with the truth.
gaze peering around, the mind analyzes things, relates them to each other (noting their affinity), or separates (noting the differences), while the evening is spread around the scent (lemon). These are the silences in which every human shadow leaves seem to see a divine being disturbed as bothered by a reality that is not up to it:.
But the illusion (of being almost a divine being) and comes short time brings us back to noisy cities where the blue (the cycle) is shown only in pieces, at the top between the eaves of the buildings (including the cornices). The rain (autumn), then, weary land (beating all the time), then the tedium thickens on the houses. the light fades, the soul is sad.
(But the same illusion can be repeated) when, in the cold winter, (suddenly) from a badly closed door, between the trees of a courtyard, shows us the yellow lemons. Then the ice melts the heart, and lemons, recalling, by analogy to color, the golden trumpets of the sun (ie, its joyful beams) give us the thrill of a moment of joy pouring out of us roar of their songs.
final consideration. Listen to the confidential which opens the poem (as well as see), we must not think of a specific person but to a fictitious party: all of us readers.
THE MUSIC OF WORDS. Writing twenty years later, her first book, Montale said that the contents were not the reason that prompted him to compose his poems: the contents do not represented an intention that preceded the composition ("programmatic"), but were only after having written explanations (a posteriori). This is because its attention was focused not on the level of content but in terms of expression, research that is of words, and was mainly oriented on their musical value.
"The intentions are all that now expose a posteriori. Obey a need for musical expression. I wanted my word was closer to that of other poets that I had known. Closer to that? I seemed to live under a glass bell, yet I felt to be close to something essential. A thin veil, a thread I just separated from the final quid. The absolute expression would be breaking the veil of that thread: an explosion, the end of the deception of the world as representation. But this was an unattainable limit. And my music will grip remained, instinctive, not programmatic. The eloquence of our old language I wanted to wring his neck, maybe at risk of controeloquenza (in Intentions (Interview imaginary), 1946, now reads the poems).
EL'INCOMUNICABILITÀ RESEARCH OF POETRY, THE ILLUSION OF REALITY. At the heart of another poem of Ossi di sepia return to the themes of poetry as a quest for knowledge ('the break of the veil "), its fundamental limitation: the inability to communicate (to the idea that the poet is to interpret and give directions), and as an illusion of reality: the poet is able to discover the reality for a moment ( "addressing, I see the miracle"), but not to communicate ("I go quiet ... / with my secret"), and the reality is in fact a "nothing" and his appearance ("tree houses hills ') only a "deception":
Maybe one morning going into an air-glass,
dry, turning, I see the miracle:
nothing behind me, the
of emptiness behind me. With a fear of drunk.
Then the screen as if one be, and pitched Gitte
trees hills homes for the usual deception.
But it will be too late, and I shut up I go
among men who do not look back, with my secret.
(from Cuttlefish Bones)
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