Montale, Eugenio

Montale, Eugenio (ājĕ`nyō mōntä`lā), 1896–1981, Italian poet, critic, and translator. After working as an editor, Montale became chief librarian of the Gabinetto Vieusseux in Florence. His complex poetry expresses the tensions and disorders of 20th-century European culture, especially of Italian social and political life under fascism. Montale's pessimistic philosophy stressed that only the occasional moment of joy could give one a glimpse of salvation in the midst of one's hopeless existence on earth. Montale speaks with a stoic voice, one resigned to accept the absurdities and illusions of life. The collection Poesie (1958, tr. 1964) includes Ossi di seppia (1925), Le occasioni (1939), and La bufera e altro (1956). Montale's other works include The Butterfly of Dinard (1956, tr. 1971), a collection of book reviews and cultural criticism written for the newspaper Il corriere della sera, as well as Quaderno di traduzioni (1975), translations of T. S. Eliot, Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Corneille. Montale was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1975.

Bibliography

See his Collected Poems, tr. by J. Galassi (1998); studies by G. Cambon (1972), G. S. Singh (1973), and R. J. West (1981).

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Montale, Eugenio

(born Oct. 12, 1896, Genoa, Italy—died Sept. 12, 1981, Milan) Italian poet, prose writer, editor, and translator. Montale began his literary activities after World War I, cofounding a journal, writing for other journals, and serving as a library director in Florence. His first book of poems, Cuttlefish Bones (1925), expressed the bitter pessimism of the postwar period. He was identified with Hermeticism in the 1930s and '40s, and his works became progressively introverted and obscure. With The Storm and Other Poems (1956) his writing showed the increasing skill, warmth, and directness characteristic of his late period. His stories and sketches were collected in The Butterfly of Dinard (1956). He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975.