To speak worthily about Eugenio Montale (1896 – 1981) would certainly require much more space than that allotted by a simple article, however, while not aspiring to conduct an exhaustive critical analysis, I wish to analyze just a few aspects of his poetics. In particular, I would like to emphasize the existentialist approach of some of his most famous poems.

Brief introductory biographical note

Eugenio Montale was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1896. He was a renowned Italian poet and critic, widely regarded as one of the greatest literary figures of the 20th century. Montale’s poetic journey began during his studies at the University of Genoa, where he developed a deep passion for literature and writing. His early works showed his deep love for his homeland, exploring themes of nature, love and the complexities of Human existence.

However, it was only when Montale moved to Florence in the 1920s that his poetic voice truly flourished. Influenced by the literary movements of Symbolism and Hermeticism, he embraced a more distinctive and introspective style. Montale’s poetry is characterized by its elegant and evocative language as well as its deep philosophical and existential undertones.

Throughout his career, Montale received numerous awards for his contributions to Italian literature, including the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975. His poems continue to resonate with readers around the world, capturing the essence of the human experience in all its complexities.

Eugenio Montale’s legacy as a poetic visionary endures to this day, and his words serve as a testament to the power of language and its ability to transcend time and place. His works remain a source of inspiration for aspiring poets and literary lovers alike, and his impact on Italian culture is immeasurable.

Living: an inevitable reality cloaked in malaise

The first and most important philosophical element we find in Montale’s poetic works is precisely the realization that life is not a process that man undergoes (as, according to Heidegger, an entity with the mode ofbeing-in-the-world). An inescapable condition (unless, of course, to end it by force), the substance of which is generally unable to satisfy the existential needs of man himself.

As well as Albert Camus, had skillfully depicted the human condition through comparison with the mythological figure of Sisyphus, forced in eternity to climb from the valley to the top of a mountain pushing a large boulder, only to see it immediately fall back down as soon as he had reached the apparent crowning achievement of his effort, Montale knows well that no human reality can fill the void that existence creates to emerge in the world.

In his celebrated collection“Ossi di seppia,” he succeeds in condensing, in a hermeticism that displaces entire descriptions within single lines, his consciousness-raising as a human being:

Spesso il male di vivere ho incontrato:
era il rivo strozzato che gorgoglia,
era l'incartocciarsi della foglia
riarsa, era il cavallo stramazzato.

Bene non seppi, fuori del prodigio
che schiude la divina Indifferenza:
era la statua nella sonnolenza
del meriggio, e la nuvola, e il falco alto levato.

The incipit leaves no room for imagination: it is sharp and lightning fast. The poet knows the “evil of living” and has internalized it to the point of considering it a part of himself, sometimes silent, but much more often, alive and pulsating. The similes that follow the opening verse, like a musical development, repeat the same words but color them in different ways. There are not so many evils of living. There are not many experiences with the mottled character of Malaise. There is only a lucid and constant awareness that, in a “polyphonic” and “polyimbic” world, can only take on different-looking forms. The succession of the three verses after the opening of the first stanza confirms this unequivocally. It is not the “choked brook” or “the wrinkled leaf” that indicates the reality of malaise, but rather, it is the latter that is reflected in reality, like a symphonic motif that passes from one instrumental group to another, until it involves the entire orchestra, having resonated in all its facets.

However, as we shall also see in other poetic compositions, one almost always gets the impression that Montale’s pessimism does not spring from a “universal,” “cosmic” awareness (in some ways similar to that often expressed by Giacomo Leopardi), but, on the contrary, it always possesses a gash, an incompleteness that lets out what is opposed to the malaise. “The Prodigy of Divine Indifference” exists, the author knows of it, but it is like a precious painting protected by an indestructible and, at times, opaque glass case. He sees the contours of the shapes, but his hand, who knows, sometimes stretched toward it, always ends up bumping into the cold, impassible protective surface.

Being-in-the-world or rather ill-being

Man is condemned to be such, but while at first glance, it might seem that such a condition is akin to that of a caged animal, closer analysis shows a very different landscape. Man, in fact, is aware of his malaise as he contrasts it, at least theoretically, with a corresponding positive. In other words, Montale (as well as any sensible man, for that matter) conceives of “well-being,” but, if the malaise is overt, materialized in the hawk, or in the impassibility of the statue in the center of a sunny square, well-being is ethereal, elusive, at times even indefinable. In such a condition, it reveals its terrible nature, sharper than a blade but as insubstantial as a cluster of clouds in a midsummer sky.

When nature concerts the nuances of malaise

One of Montale’s most famous poems, “Meriggiare pallido e assorto,” anticipates the themes that the poet would find again, amplified and multifaceted, during his artistic maturity. The context is that of the rural Ligurian landscape, compressed between the mountains and the sea, during a scorching summer month. Interestingly, the choice of settings often falls to a desolate but “light-filled” location. The early afternoon sun, for Montale, is by no means a pleasant companion to meditation or rest, a resource, therefore, benevolent, bestowing warmth and energy.

Summer: desert where echoes scream the human condition

Rather, it is an intrusive host that, by its very nature, transcends all boundaries, spreads out, penetrates the private and dominates it. Without much hesitation, we can say that Montale’s Sun is the most pregnant representation of malaise. Not because of its intrinsic nature, but because of the existential condition it holds. Then again, in the poet’s lyrics, we never find such Leopardi-like lines as “…for me life is bad…” (i.e., Canto notturno di un pastore errante dell’Asia). For Montale, evil does not have such definite features, nor is it something one can too easily complain about. Life is “bad” for every conscious man, to the point of commonly losing this attribute. Malaise is the most genuine way of realizing one’s human nature: there are no people who can escape this fate, except perhaps psychotics and newborn children.

Meriggiare pallido e assorto
presso un rovente muro d’orto,
ascoltare tra i pruni e gli sterpi
schiocchi di merli, frusci di serpi.

Nelle crepe del suolo o su la veccia
spiar le file di rosse formiche
ch’ora si rompono ed ora s’intrecciano
a sommo di minuscole biche.

Osservare tra frondi il palpitare
lontano di scaglie di mare
m entre si levano tremuli scricchi
di cicale dai calvi picchi.

E andando nel sole che abbaglia
sentire con triste meraviglia
com’è tutta la vita e il suo travaglio
in questo seguitare una muraglia
che ha in cima cocci aguzzi di bottiglia.

The poem is both a linguistic and musical capstone, the analysis of which would require an article in itself. Here, I will only highlight the points that emphasize man’s existential condition. Montale divides the composition into 3 + 1 stanzas, assigning to the first the introductory and preparatory role and, to the last, the synthesis of the entire poetic discourse. Malaise peeps out immediately, starting with the very successful choice of using the infinitive verbal tense. In the first three stanzas, we find “Meriggling,” “Listening,” “Spying,” and “Observing.” Who takes charge of this?

Man as an icon of impersonality

The genius gimmick is precisely that of the search for impersonality. If malaise is man’s mode of being, any assignment of subject is limiting. Moreover, infinity defines a kind of passivity-activity dichotomy: one neither “listens” nor “observes” as this might lead one to think of an act of will, a deliberate choice. But this would give the subject far too much control over his existential fate. Man unintentionally experiences the mode of being of observation. Unless one closes one’s eyes (being faced with an expanse of blackness anyway) or is blind, he must (without any imposition on him) observe, listen, spy, for they are but transient aspects ofbeing-in-the-world.

The preparation of the first three stanzas is based on bucolic descriptions, sounds, and images, all described through consonances and a careful choice of onomatopoeic terms. It all adds up to define that imperishable undercurrent destined to come back to life, like Sisyphus’ boulder at the foot of the mountain. Reading these verses does not assogmilate to listening to the symphony
Pastoral
by Beethoven. In Montale, “the listener” pays no attention, does not follow the development of the motifs, the coming of an instrumental group, the alternation of woodwinds and strings. In Montale, every image is introjected without will. Quoting a line from Fabrizio De Andrè, “…like smoke she penetrates every crevice…”

The malaise is multifaceted, but it has only one face

Here the evil of living returns in new guise, now in the form of a cicada, now as a snake or ant. No matter what guise it may take. What really makes it unique and invulnerable is precisely its passivity to human perception. It presents itself because no man could fail to welcome it, and even if one were to set such a goal, in this choice would only conceal the transfiguration of Sisyphus’ effort. An attempt, according to Camus, to be made without delay, but which, alas, exists only and exclusively to fail.

Camus’ man in revolt becomes Montale’s man on the road.

The last stanza changes the rhythmic register: from the infinitive to the gerund. Also impersonal, cold, almost aseptic, but endowed with dynamism. Man goes, walks, moves, cannot stand still, for time is outside of it and can only be undergone. Just like a musical composition, being-in-the-world unfolds in the flow of time and contrasts, to the stasis of seemingly impassive observation, the inexorable reality of metronome beats.

Existence is projected as the arrow of time defined in Thermodynamics and the vanishing point, Giotto’s glory and curse, draws to itself to annihilate. In a dimensionless microcosm, man, perhaps, finds the crowning of his existence, but all this is but a chimera, an asymptote. What can be seen is only the unstoppable motion toward a scratching sun, which radiates to blind and, who knows, perhaps also to show extreme mercy to the man victimized by the world: finally depriving him of sight and thus making him safe from Sisyphus’ condemnation.

To be a man is to be alone

One might wonder if this path, this striving toward infinity (whether big or small) does not bring relief. It is a legitimate question and, perhaps a hope that lurks in every heart, but existentialism has taken it upon itself to answer that question, perhaps attracting the hatred of the most desperate. For Montale, the path is necessary, unstoppable, but also terribly lonely. There are no fellow sufferers, even though we know that the whole of humanity lives in malaise.

This is perhaps the most shocking discovery, the terrible anathema uttered by a God victimized by his own Unitarian nature. Loneliness will have to accompany every human being, hold his hand and, like a fierce tormentor, support him when his strength fails. One cannot not suffer and one cannot not suffer in loneliness. A wall separates every man’s path, but it is more than just a natural obstacle. It is man himself, by placing shards of bottoglia (i.e., peasant technique to deter thieves) on it, masochistically, that makes the act of overriding, of breaking, even for a moment, this tremendous rule, impossible.

Love and care, bastions of Heidegger, founder in Montale

What about love, the genuine longing for union with another? Can this be an escape route? According to Heidegger, caring (i.e., taking care) is the mode of being that best fits human nature, but how strong is that connection? What prerogatives can it have? The beautiful poem “House by the Sea” also answers such questions.

ll viaggio finisce qui:
nelle cure meschine che dividono
l'anima che non sa più dare un grido.
Ora i minuti sono eguali e fissi
come i giri di ruota della pompa.
Un giro: un salir d'acqua che rimbomba.
Un altro, altr'acqua, a tratti un cigolio.

Il viaggio finisce a questa spiaggia
che tentano gli assidui e lenti flussi.
Nulla disvela se non pigri fumi
la marina che tramano di conche
i soffi leni: ed è raro che appaia
nella bonaccia muta
tra l'isole dell'aria migrabonde
la Corsica dorsuta o la Capraia.

Tu chiedi se così tutto vanisce
in questa poca nebbia di memorie;
se nell'ora che torpe o nel sospiro
del frangente si compie ogni destino.
Vorrei dirti che no, che ti s'appressa
l'ora che passerai di là dal tempo;
forse solo chi vuole s'infinita,
e questo tu potrai, chissà, non io.
Penso che per i più non sia salvezza,
ma taluno sovverta ogni disegno,
passi il varco, qual volle si ritrovi.
Vorrei prima di cedere segnarti
codesta via di fuga
labile come nei sommossi campi
del mare spuma o ruga.
Ti dono anche l'avara mia speranza.
A' nuovi giorni, stanco, non so crescerla:
l'offro in pegno al tuo fato, che ti scampi.

Il cammino finisce a queste prode
che rode la marea col moto alterno.
Il tuo cuore vicino che non m'ode
salpa già forse per l'eterno.

In describing a seascape, typically Ligurian, in which islands north of Sardinia appear, at least in memory, Montale reflects on love. In this lyric, it is not the snapping of blackbirds or lizards that mark the underlying rhythm of existence, but the slow, faint, and grave regular motion of waves. Like a kettledrum in pianissimo, the “assiduous and slow flows” mimic the beat of a seemingly distant heart.

The poet seems alone, sitting on the beach, meditating. But this is only an illusion: there is an interlocutor, indistinct, but recognizable in the archetype of the life partner – of one’s wife, in this case. It is perhaps, precisely Drusilla Tanzi, Montale’s real consort, whom the poet addresses with chilling sweetness. Not dulcet words and sublime verses. Not bright metaphors, as in the Song of Songs, but rather a dry testamentary statement.

Montale and hope: between the will for transcendence and the claws of materialism

The poet, as in “Meriggiare pallido e assorto,” glimpses infinity. As in a Lucio Fontana cut, he knows that something must be there among the glowing embers that draw the path of existence. And perhaps, his very companion is the one who, more than anything else, reminds him of this image. But Montale is tired, his journey has been long and fruitless, so, in a wonderful act of love, he gives his own hope to his woman, so that Fate-an intentionally evanescent definition-will rescue her and give her what he himself has always yearned for.

But even this act, in its extraordinary essence, seems destined to fall into vain. Montale speaks, or, perhaps, just like the surf, he merely whispers, catching his breath between words. He desperately tries to break through that jagged wall with sharp pieces of glass. He does not care, who knows, about injuring himself or even dying; what matters most is to come to truly touch the hand of his beloved. But unfortunately, loneliness admits of no exceptions; even in the ostensibly most intimate unions, deception, illusion lurks.

Drusilla is sitting next to him, but it is as if she is absent, for her real presence is beyond the wall. And Montale knows this, describing with a kind of oxymoron, his condition: “the near heart that does not hear me.” It is not a matter of biological or, even, psychological deafness, but of every man’s sort. The closeness is elusive even from the voice and so, in a burst of apparent optimism, he assumes that this much sought-after heart has finally discovered the “way of escape” and, like a boat ready to set sail, is already moving, slow but inexorable, toward what only she, his life partner, knows no longer as a disembodied point of attraction, but as the real eternal, that infinity that Montale glimpsed between the folds of a spatial concept by Fontana.

Daring is permissible, but it is not allowed

If he knows this gash and, without excess of freedom, the infinity behind it, why does he not wish to communicate it? In fact, Montale does not reject himself, although the appearance might be that; he “simply” knows that he cannot satisfy this common desire.

Non chiederci la parola che squadri da ogni lato
l'animo nostro informe, e a lettere di fuoco
lo dichiari e risplenda come un croco
Perduto in mezzo a un polveroso prato.

Ah l'uomo che se ne va sicuro,
agli altri ed a se stesso amico,
e l'ombra sua non cura che la canicola
stampa sopra uno scalcinato muro!

Non domandarci la formula che mondi possa aprirti
sì qualche storta sillaba e secca come un ramo.
Codesto solo oggi possiamo dirti,
ciò che non siamo, ciò che non vogliamo.

In the poem “Don’t Ask Us for the Word,” we find an answer to our question. The “word” or “formula” exists, otherwise there would be no point in talking about it, but this does not imply that it is accessible or communicable. The impression one gets when reading this lyric is of a Montale on the stage prepared for a political rally of yesteryear, surrounded by a crowd of people waiting with their heads turned slightly upward.

The sun and the wall: companions for eternity

The poet is not afraid of disappointment or loss of popularity, and his answer is trance-like: do not ask, do not ask, for (this, perhaps, he only thinks) I will not be able to answer you. Perhaps there are men who claim this right, but having no instrument whatsoever to subvert the existential reality of humankind, they turn their gaze to the crowd as they proclaim their truths, but they cannot of the shadow – of the unequivocal evidence, which the same sun of “Meriggiare pallido e assorto” casts on the wall of their loneliness.

No formula can reveal the “falsity of truth.” Although the glimpses are multiplying like bacteria and increasingly it is possible to glimpse that indistinct backdrop, such worlds are foreclosed. Lacan would say that they are beyond language and therefore impossible to manipulate with the tools at our disposal. It is, however, possible to utter a few “crooked syllables,” to make a notoriously unsuccessful but still feasible attempt. Twist one’s lips to sneer a formless, dry, contentless verse. Like a squid bone, that’s all that can be said. Nothing else. The wall is too thick to let even a hiss escape, and the knowledge more akin to the contortions of a hallucinated person than to notions dictated to a class of pupils.

Existence on a sharp shard of a bottle

For now, I think it is time to stop. No discussion of Montale can be exhaustive: his poetry is so rich and topical that it engages every person, depending on different levels of sensitivity. What I wished to highlight (albeit limitedly) is the existential approach of his artistic production, in particular, some facets of his thinking, which is too often branded with pessimism, without providing the right elements of evaluation.

Montale was a man capable of transforming various philosophical contents collected in large volumes into a musical flow of verse, rhythms, images, sounds and, finally, words. His poems do not take refuge in a frantic search for a courtly language, but rather arise as if observation, introspection and poetic technique were concatenated parts of a single creative process.

Human existence is always troubled, but to seek this unfavorable condition only within merely social contexts is risky. For Montale, man is, before anything else, the one who is destined to be such, the one who sees the sun, names it, invokes it (as God or simulacrum), but never and in no way will he be able to come to it, in a finally total communion, without falling mangled like a horse, blind and with bleeding hands. Even love, seemingly more solid and mighty than any capricious deity, is consumed in a dying beat that takes the place of every word, every smile, every possibility of sharing.

The post Montale: existence on a sharp shard of a bottle appeared first on Giuseppe Bonaccorso.