Poetry Bookclub 2 [Archive] - Page 2 - Literature Network Forums

quasimodo1

10-09-2008, 09:16 PM

Poetry Bookclub bibliographies

AKHMATOVA

Poetry

Anna Akhmatova: Poems (1983)
Anno Domini MCMXXI (1922) - rus
Evening (1912) - rus
Plantain (1921) - rus
Poems of Akhmatova (1967)
Rosary (1914)
Selected Poems (1976)
Selected Poems (1989)
The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova (1990)
Twenty Poems of Anna Akhmatova (1985)
White Flock (1914)

BISHOP

North & South (Houghton Mifflin, 1946)
A Cold Spring|Poems: North & South — A Cold Spring (Houghton Mifflin, 1955)
A Cold Spring (Houghton Mifflin, 1956)
Questions of Travel (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1965)
The Complete Poems (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1969)
Geography III, (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1976)
The Complete Poems: 1927-1979 (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1983)
Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke-Box: Uncollected Poems, Drafts, and Fragments, edited and annotated by Alice Quinn, (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2006)
Other works:

McGUCKIAN

Her first published poems appeared in two pamphlets, Single Ladies: Sixteen Poems and Portrait of Joanna, in 1980, the year in which she received an Eric Gregory Award. In 1981 she co-published Trio Poetry 2 with fellow poets Damian Gorman and Douglas Marshall, and in 1989 she collaborated with Nuala Archer on Two Women, Two Shores. Medbh McGuckian's first major collection, The Flower Master (1982), which explores post-natal breakdown, was awarded a Rooney prize for Irish Literature, an Ireland Arts Council Award (both 1982) and an Alice Hunt Bartlett Award (1983). She is also the winner of the 1989 Cheltenham Prize for her collection On Ballycastle Beach.

Medbh McGuckian has also edited an anthology, The Big Striped Golfing Umbrella: Poems by Young People from Northern Ireland (1985) for the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, written a study of the car in the poetry of Seamus Heaney, entitled Horsepower Pass By! (1999), and has translated into English (with Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin) The Water Horse (1999), a selection of poems in Irish by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. A volume of Selected Poems: 1978-1994 was published in 1997, and among her latest collections are The Book of the Angel (2004) and 'The Currach Requires No Harbours' (2007).

Recent criticism of McGuckian has pointed to her extensive use of unacknowledged source material, from Russian poetry and elsewhere, a discovery that may have motivated her decision to name (on the acknowledgements page) the primary source for her latest collection, The Currach Requires No Harbour.

MONTALE

Ossi di seppia (1925)
La casa dei doganieri e altre poesie (1932)
Le occasioni (1939)
Finisterre (1943)
La fiera letteraria (Poetry criticism, 1948)
La bufera e altro (1956)
La farfalla di Dinard (Journalism, 1956)
Satura (1962)
Accordi e pastelli (1962)
Il colpevole (1966)
Xenia (1966)
Fuori di casa (1969)
Diario del '71 e del '72 (1973)
Posthumous Diary (1996)
The Storm & Other Poems, trans. Charles Wright (Oberlin College Press, 1978), ISBN 0-932440-01-0
Selected Poems, trans. Jonathan Galassi, Charles Wright, & David Young (Oberlin College Press, 2004), ISBN 0-932440-98-3

PAZ

His works include the poetry collections La Estación Violenta, (1956), Piedra de Sol (1957), and in English translation the most prominent include two volumes which include most of Paz in English: Early Poems: 1935–1955 (tr. 1974), and Collected Poems, 1957–1987 (1987). Many of these volumes have been edited and translated by Eliot Weinberger, who is Paz's principal translator into American English.

PLATH

Plath has been criticized for her controversial allusions to the Holocaust, and is known for her uncanny use of metaphor. Her work has been compared to and associated with Anne Sexton, W.D. Snodgrass, and other confessional poets.
While the few critics who responded to Plath's first book, The Colossus, did so favorably, it has also been described as somewhat staid and conventional in comparison to the much more free-flowing imagery and intensity of her later work.

The poems in Ariel mark a departure from her earlier work into a more personal arena of poetry. It is a possibility that Lowell's poetry—which is often labeled "confessional"—played a part in this shift. Indeed, in an interview before her death she listed Lowell's Life Studies as an influence. The impact of Ariel was dramatic, with its potentially autobiographical descriptions of mental illness in poems such as, "Tulips", "Daddy" and "Lady Lazarus".

In 1982, Plath became the first poet to win a Pulitzer Prize posthumously for The Collected Poems. In 2006, a graduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University discovered a previously unpublished sonnet written by Plath entitled "Ennui". The poem, composed during Plath's early years at Smith College, is published in Blackbird, the online journal.

TATE

Poetry

Poems, 1928-1931, 1932.
The Mediterranean and Other Poems, 1936.
Selected Poems, 1937.
The Winter Sea, 1944.
Poems, 1920-1945, 1947.
Poems, 1922-1947, 1948.
Two Conceits for the Eye to Sing, If Possible, 1950.
Poems, 1960.
Poems, 1961.
Collected Poems, 1970.
The Swimmers and Other Selected Poems, 1970.

Petrarch's Love

10-09-2008, 10:14 PM

Just to add my own opinion on the Plath discussion, I'll first admit I haven't read a great deal by her, so there may be great stuff I'm missing; I just don't know. What I have read by her didn't impress me much at all, and I completely agree with JBI's assessment of her allusions to the holocaust in "Daddy." Comparing having personal issues with her father to being a victim of the holocaust strikes me as grossly disproportionate, inappropriate and immature.

First of all lots of people were using the Jew in a concentration camp as a metaphor post WWII. Lots. In poetry and fiction. If she's a product of her age than what's wrong with that? It's like saying Shakespeare shouldn't be using Renaissance metaphors or Dante using Christian metaphors.

Yes, there were a lot of references to the holocaust post WWII, but generally I think poets of integrity treat such references in a serious way, with respect for the extent of the horror they are invoking in referring to concentration camps. By comparing her pain at a father's distance to being a jew suffering at the hands of a Nazi, she diminishes the reality of the horror the latter would have suffered. The two are deeply disproportionate forms of suffering. Though there are some problems with the analogy you bring up between Dante using Christian metaphors and modern poets alluding to the Holocaust (one is a positive belief that is a part of a culture, while another is an unimaginably brutal event that tried to destroy a whole people and to rend a culture apart, which are two very different things), I think there's a possible way to use that to illustrate the way in which I see this to be inappropriate. If a poet in Dante or Shakespeare's Christian world were to pen a poem in which he were seriously, and in great detail, saying that he suffered just the way Christ did on the cross because his lady didn't show him favor--actually said right out that he is the suffering Lord and she is pounding nails into his hands, I'm not sure that would fly too well either. This is not to say that poets of that time don't sometimes incorporate religious vocabulary or themes into love poetry, but they wouldn't directly suggest that they have suffered as much as Christ suffered in the same manner that Plath suggests that she has suffered just as much as victims of the Holocaust suffered. Again, these are actually quite different cultural influences in many ways, but I don't think it's a good defense of Plath's use of these metaphors to simply say it's part of her culture. What you do with cultural reference makes a huge difference. Incidentally, I disagree that Plath should not be allowed to refer to the holocaust at all simply because she didn't experience an event that horrific, but I do think the manner in which she refers to it in that poem is objectionable. When it comes to great suffering, some respect for the enormity of that suffering is in order.

Virgil

10-09-2008, 11:00 PM

Petrarch's Love

10-09-2008, 11:05 PM

Petrarch: I enjoy your arguments for Roethke much more than I enjoy the samples of his work presented to me, with the possible exception of "The Shape of Fire"; the best way I can say why, in the moment, is because I sense Roethke uses formalism much like a straight jacket is used to control the disruption and the danger in the delusional patient.

And for myself, I ask, why not take the risk? Why not leap and see what kind of brush fire your manic state leaves behind? You want to, and have the appreciation of Yeats and Eliot in the fumes of your aspiration, and yet, you hold yourself in.

And thus far, that is my argument with him, which remains unanswered. Do I have to square this with my argument that Plath's biography is too tied to her output? Hehe! :)

Hi Jozy--Well, seldom has a critic been told her argument is more engaging than the poetry being argued over. :lol: I found your above response interesting because it showed me that I think we fundamentally agree about what's going on in Roethke's "Four for Sir John Davies." I completely agree that the formalism and the nostalgia for the poem is partly a direct reaction to his mania. While you see this as a "straightjacket," however, I was seeing it as a comfort. We're both pointing to the same thing: he's reigning in his manic tendencies here, but we two were reacting in different ways to that. I do agree with you that it can sometimes be a good thing for a poet to let go completely, to embrace disorder and see where it takes him, but I had the sense in this case of a person who had experienced more than his fair share of mania, and there was something moving about this sense of balance he was exploring in this poem. Sometimes trying to find order can be just as daring as trying to find disorder. Now, I don't really think this is a daring poem, indeed I'm not trying to argue that it's a poem of particular genius, but I do think it affords some pleasure. Obviously it's ultimately a matter of personal taste, and in this case you obviously would like him to let loose some more, while I find some things appealing in this more staid vein. I personally wasn't as fond of the "The Shape of Fire" because, much as I saw some interesting potential in there, I felt it was too much a product of his mania, to the point where it ceased to be able to speak to the reader and to convey thought and emotion in an effective way. Honestly, probably a poem better than either of those would be one displaying more of a balance or, better yet, a tension between the two modes. A poet needs to be able to do either extreme--let go and spill things out in passion, even mania, and work within formal structures and modes--because writing requires familiarity with both.

JBI

10-09-2008, 11:06 PM

I admit she has resonated into a cult of personality, but I think that unlike Bukowski there is a there there. I don't understand what you mean by "modality of her poetic tropes." every poet uses poetic tropes.

First of all lots of people were using the Jew in a concentration camp as a metaphor post WWII. Lots. In poetry and fiction. If she's a product of her age than what's wrong with that? It's like saying Shakespeare shouldn't be using Renaissance metaphors or Dante using Christian metaphors. I studied Plath in college with that same professor I quoted above with a Roethke poem, Karl Malkoff. And he was Jewish and felt no insult and he thought her poetyr of quality, enough to include in a class of Stevens, Wiliiams, Lowell, and the other great American second half 20th century poets .

No I'm not familiar with the collection but I guess I have a deal of her poems and I can find iton the internet. I bet it woould be a fiesty discussion. :D But if people don't want to I understand.

Here's a poem:

[Snip]
http://www.famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/sylvia_plath/poems/18927

I find this a solid poem by a world class poet.

I too have studied her, and read her collected poems from cover to cover. She does nothing, in my opinion, but writes pseudo hysterics. I'm not alone in my criticism - other critics have said similar things. It just happens that she wrote in a time where people were looking for this sort of thing - in the post-Freud era, where this sort of junk was popular (just look at the generation of poets she was writing in, all depressive, and most alcoholics). I just don't think she does what ever she does really well, and instead jumps to the controversial, or the outrageous.

Critically, her first book has been dismissed, everything published in her life time pretty much has - it is her later works that receive all the attention, and of all of them, Ariel in particular. I don't find her a very strong poet. She imagines herself some sort of victim of some world scheme, when really she had none of it. She grew up during the war, but wasn't a Jew, or even a European, and has no right. It's like me going out and comparing myself to someone in the killing fields in Cambodia. It's not normal, or justified. Sure, one could argue this has nothing to do with her poetry, but I find her work just over dramatizing an already privileged life, in which she had all the opportunities in the world.

Or better yet, why don't I write a poem about my personal suffering, portraying myself as a child-rape victim, who in the end is brutally murdered? Would that go over very well? Where is the line? How much is one aloud to take.

This isn't the only instance she uses Holocaust imagery and references, she seems to do so throughout the entire body of her works. Of course, I'm not a fan of censorship, and I try to keep personal views out of my reading, but something like this can't be ignored, as it is probably her most anthologized, and well known poem.

Dark Muse

10-09-2008, 11:14 PM

It's not normal, or justified. Sure, one could argue this has nothing to do with her poetry, but I find her work just over dramatizing an already privileged life, in which she had all the opportunities in the world.

That does not seem to be a very intelligent argument. That because she had opportunities, or group up with a certain upbringing or family background means she does not have the right to have certain personal feelings, or express emotions that are not filled with puppy dogs and sunshine.

Just because a person comes from a well to do family, or has had opportunities does not be default mean they must be happy, or have had positive life experiences.

A person is entitled to feel what they feel, as Virgil pointed out in one of his above post, not matter how they are raised, and as an artist they are permitted to express those feelings in the way of their own choosing.

It does not mean everyone has to enjoy the work. But to say, she had no right to even have those feelings because of her upbringing, that is just ludicrous.

JBI

10-09-2008, 11:21 PM

That does not seem to be a very intelligent argument. That because she had opportunities, or group up with a certain upbringing or family background means she does not have the right to have certain personal feelings, or express emotions that are not filled with puppy dogs and sunshine.

Just because a person comes from a well to do family, or has had opportunities does not be default mean they must be happy, or have had positive life experiences.

A person is entitled to feel what they feel, as Virgil pointed out in one of his above post, not matter how they are raised, and as an artist they are permitted to express those feelings in the way of their own choosing.

It does not mean everyone has to enjoy the work. But to say, she had no right to even have those feelings because of her upbringing, that is just ludicrous.

Of course, and I must be drawn back to Robinson's Richard Cory,

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich, richer than a king—
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Yet Cory's death isn't the same - him killing himself is justified by himself, but are we supposed to feel sorry for him? Is Robinson really saying everyone has problems, or is he being ironic and saying people are never happy. Either way though, as it applies to Plath, she had the privileges Jews in concentration camps didn't have. She went to school, had a life, whereas 6million other people didn't. She may have been depressed, but she wasn't targeted for extermination. It is alright for her to try to convey her depression, as Lowell did before her, but where is the line. Are we supposed to feel sorry for her, or is she merely acting childish, and saying, "oh I have such a bad life." Personally, I think she just has an inability to be happy, which makes her not a profound individual, but a mentally ill one, and that has no justification for over dramatization, and overdoing it with making herself seem as if she has had the most terrible existence, when the fact that she has her life is proof enough that she is not actually "a Jew".

Virgil

10-09-2008, 11:23 PM

Yes, JBI, you're constant insertion of her "privildged life" reflects your personal reaction to her the person rather than her poetry. What her real life was has nothing to do with her work. What she felt, whether honest or not, is irrelevant. I personally take it as honest, like I said she did commit suicide. It's the work. After perusing her work I can see a young poet in there. She died at 31 so most of her work is of a youth. But her good work, perhaps posthumous in Ariel, seems solid to me. That's my assessment. Let the critics debate it out. ;)

JBI

10-09-2008, 11:31 PM

I don't know if she would have even been given a second glance had she not killed herself. The question hovers over her work, I find. As a person, her life has become a media best seller. From the movie, to the cult following, which seems to be perpetually supporting her work. As it is, I don't know if her work can be read without her biography in the mix, and I personally doubt she would be successful as a poet without a biography.

Virgil

10-09-2008, 11:32 PM

Here's another solid poem by Plath.

Balloons
by Sylvia Plath

Since Christmas they have lived with us,
Guileless and clear,
Oval soul-animals,
Taking up half the space,
Moving and rubbing on the silk

Invisible air drifts,
Giving a shriek and pop
When attacked, then scooting to rest, barely trembling.
Yellow cathead, blue fish ----
Such queer moons we live with

Instead of dead furniture!
Straw mats, white walls
And these traveling
Globes of thin air, red, green,
Delighting

The heart like wishes or free
Peacocks blessing
Old ground with a feather
Beaten in starry metals.[Snip]
http://www.famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/sylvia_plath/poems/18932

Read the whole poem. And frankly this is prior to the Confessional movement took off. So give her credit for pushing the form.

Epistemophile

10-09-2008, 11:36 PM

It's not normal, or justified. Sure, one could argue this has nothing to do with her poetry, but I find her work just over dramatizing an already privileged life, in which she had all the opportunities in the world.

how do you ever justify what you write and why you write? why should there be any justification at all? a poet chooses his/her subject matter and he or she chooses to write in a particular way. we can either like it or dislike it, but can we really say that the poet does not have sanction to write about something he/she personally never experienced?
and, what would be art without dramatization!
we usually brand off poets like anne sexton and sylvia plath as 'confessionals' but sometimes fail to notice that in several cases irony forms the lynchpin around which many of their poems turn.
for me the very complexity in plath's poetry arises from a (perhaps deliberate) confusion between confessional and ironic utterances. i mean, how many of us have tried to read her poems as dramatic monologue of sorts?

Virgil

10-09-2008, 11:38 PM

And another:

Sow
by Sylvia Plath

God knows how our neighbor managed to breed
His great sow:
Whatever his shrewd secret, he kept it hid

In the same way
He kept the sow--impounded from public stare,
Prize ribbon and pig show.

But one dusk our questions commended us to a tour
Through his lantern-lit
Maze of barns to the lintel of the sunk sty door

To gape at it:
This was no rose-and-larkspurred china suckling
With a penny slot

For thrift children, nor dolt pig ripe for heckling,
About to be
Glorified for prime flesh and golden crackling

In a parsley halo;
Nor even one of the common barnyard sows,
Mire-smirched, blowzy,

Maunching thistle and knotweed on her snout-
cruise--
Bloat tun of milk
On the move, hedged by a litter of feat-foot ninnies

Shrilling her hulk
To halt for a swig at the pink teats. No. This vast
Brobdingnag bulk[Snip]
http://www.famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/sylvia_plath/poems/18945

What marvelous language in this one.

Epistemophile

10-09-2008, 11:45 PM

Of course, and I must be drawn back to Robinson's Richard Cory

And I must be drawn back to Chekov's The Death of a Government Clerk:
http://www.online-literature.com/anton_chekhov/1107/

Dark Muse

10-09-2008, 11:48 PM

I don't know if her work can be read without her biography in the mix, and I personally doubt she would be successful as a poet without a biography.

I think that can be said by a lot of Contemporary poets. I know it has been my personal experience reading the works of many Contemporary poets, where reading just their work alone, just left me confused and baffled and their work felt rather meaningless to me, and I had to go and look up information about the poet himself to try and make greater sense of what I was reading.

Petrarch's Love

10-10-2008, 12:01 AM

A poet is allowed to feel what she may feel. She did commit suicide afterall. Critics don't determine a poet's subject matter. It's like saying that TS Eliot is silly for comparing the sexuality of the 1920's as evidence of a wasteland. Or Yeats about his cyclic thoeoies of history. The poet has his ideas; it's what he does with it. Or William Faulkner comparing Benjy to Christ in The Sound and the Fury. I see nothing wrong with the Plath's halocaust metaphor because she creates with it (when you look at the total context of her work) a larger vision of humanity. Nonetheless I see everyone's points and I've noted them. I have never seen such negativity of her work before.

Of course a poet is allowed to feel what she feels. Everyone is allowed to feel whatever they like. This doesn't mean it can't be offensive to others as her use of this metaphor clearly was to JBI. I agree that we need to respect the ability of artists to express their own ideas and world views in art, but to say that we can't judge those ideas when we find them wrong or offensive would do the art just as much a disservice in the sense that it renders the ideas expressed impotent and unimportant. Yes, well written poetry can express bad ideas and still be well written, but to talk about the form of the creation and not hold a dialogue with the ideas as well would be to miss part of the purpose of a poem. Part of that purpose is, after all, to convey ideas and emotions.

As I think about the latter, about the emotions of Plath's "Daddy" I realize that I should say that I do see the way this inflated, apparently outrageously disproportionate use of the holocaust metaphor could possibly be slightly less egregious than it seems. That is, I do recognize that this was clearly someone suffering from extreme mental illness, which can be a horrendously painful and hellish experience. I do recognize that we aren't really talking about someone who lived a spotlessly happy life and is complaining about a slight problem in an otherwise fine existence. People with mental illness often talk about their problems in their relationships with others (a parent, a boyfriend or girlfriend etc.) with disproportionate intensity because it's a normalizing channel in which to express the inexplicable emotional anguish that they experience. It's pretty clear to me that Plath is transferring anguish from elsewhere into her troubled relationship with her father, which is why the metaphor comes out so extreme.

This said, I still find the use of the holocaust metaphor inappropriate in this poem. I think if the core of the poem was set up differently to suggest the way that her mental torture was heavy to bear like the physical torture that others have undergone--if it somehow suggested a fuller recognition of how unbearibly horrifying an event like the holocaust was, and made a deeper, more nuanced explanation of the way she sees some small echo of that level of horror in her own life--then I could possibly see some effective potential for the metaphor. At it is written, however, the way she uses the holocaust remains highly problematic to me, especially in the stanzas JBI quoted earlier:

An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

This isn't empathizing with people who are like her, who have suffered like her, it is saying that she has become this other, a Jew, a group associated (fairly stereotypically) with taro cards and undesirable ancestry. I don't think this passage suggests that she's an anti-semite, but it doesn't suggest that she's fully thought through what it would be to be a victim of holocaust, what it is that she is invoking here. She seems to be using the holocaust metaphor because it's the most dramatic thing she can think of rather than because she is thinking about the actual parallels (or lack of parallel) between herself and the suffering of others. Generally speaking, too, I maintain that the comparison of her suffering and that of holocaust victims is disproportionate.

P.S.--I was called away and there have been several posts added since I started this post, and which I haven't had a chance to read. I'll now go back and consider the dialogue in those posts, and the Plath poems Virgil offers in them.

stlukesguild

10-10-2008, 12:20 AM

I agree that we must allow the artist to convey what he or she feels or thinks without censorship. I would never want an art that conveys only what the artist feels is the right or correct thing to say. I have no problem with an artist being shocking or outrageous at times... although quite often if this is the central issue of the work it is a good sign of an immature artist. On the other hand, I don't see that the mantra of self-expression means that we cannot criticize what the artist has said... nor do I buy the notion that a work cannot simply be bad... even crap... because it is somehow expressive of the artist view of reality. I may be more negative about Plath because I have had her work hoisted upon me by many who would have me believe that she must be admired... recognized... worshiped as a poet simply because she "suffered".

If I wish to read writing by the mentally ill I'll stick with Nerval... or John Clare... or a good many others.

Jozanny

10-10-2008, 12:38 AM

I was going to quote myself again, from the Stalinist piece I mentioned, but since I fear getting virtually stoned:D, let me use Macbeth to make a point about immersion:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Macbeth, V.v.19-28 (Macbeth)

This is a famous soliloquy not simply because it conveys the suffering of a once honorable protagonist, but also because of how this suffering is immersed in an imagery which is ultimately comforting in its dramatic outplay. If Plath had done the same with her shallow "I am a Jew" business, maybe I'd have more sympathy, but she does not allow her imagery, such as it is, to merge into suffering and make its own motif. It is terribly bad work and turns my stomach.

Again, I have coupled European/Holocaust history with mental illness and emotional pain, but never to make the comparison with myself. I lose my own suffering and experience of it in the poem. Here is a snippet of what I mean from one of my booklength manuscripts I am submitting, this from Black Bear Review:

Before They Found Him in Neshaminy Creek

Wild eye woman of the northeast in a mug
shot we see you and oh
how the baby cries in the sound of Saturday porcelain
shellac smooth in the squall of bubble bath
social workers fail to discern
bathroom night
knife in the kitchen indeed
night of the long knives, your
mind fractures swastika crosses
/when Hitler invades
Poland is gone to Himmler and the
Black Guard to Gestapo, the
glory of the Reich in a laurel

(snipped)

I can honestly say, knowing my own output, and knowing a good deal of Plath, that I come far closer to what I was hoping to achieve with the force of this narrative (I couldn't resist, but it does go to my point).

quasimodo1

10-10-2008, 01:32 PM

THE GOOD WIFE TAUGHT HER DAUGHTER
Lordship is the same activity
Whether performed by lord or lady.
Or a lord who happens to be a lady,
All the source and all the faults.
A woman steadfast in looking is a callot,
And any woman in the wrong place
Or outside of her proper location
Is, by definition, a foolish woman.
The harlot is talkative and wandering
By the way, not bearing to be quiet,
Not able to abide still at home,
Now abroad, now in the streets,
Now lying in wait near the corners,
Her hair straying out of its wimple.
The collar of her shift and robe
Pressed one upon the other.
She goes to the green to see to her geese,
And trips to wrestling matches and taverns.
The said Margery left her home
In the parish of Bishopshill,
And went to a house, the which
The witness does not remember,
And stayed there from noon
Of that day until the darkness of night.
But a whip made of raw hippopotamus
Hide, trimmed like a corkscrew,
And anon the creature was stabled
In her wits as well as ever she was biforn,
And prayed her husband as so soon
As he came to her that she might have
The keys to her buttery
To take her meat and drink.
He should never have my good will
For to make my sister for to sell
Candle and mustard in Framlyngham,
Or fill her shopping list with crossbows,
Almonds, sugar and cloth. ... {excerpt, and a sample for those unfamiliar with McGuckian}

quasimodo1

10-10-2008, 01:38 PM

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/12/hobson.htm Review of the biography...ALLEN TATE: ORPHAN OF THE SOUTH by Fred Hobson of the Atlantic.

quasimodo1

10-10-2008, 01:42 PM

Is Poetry Still Possible?
"The Nobel Prize has been awarded this year for the seventy-fifth time, if I am not misinformed. And if there are many scientists and writers who have earned this prestigious recognition, the number of those who are living and still working is much smaller. Some of them are present here and I extend my greetings and best wishes to them. According to widespread opinion, the work of soothsayers who are not always reliable, this year or in the years which can be considered imminent, the entire world (or at least that part of the world which can be said to be civilized) will experience a historical turning of colossal proportions. It is obviously not a question of an eschatological turning, of the end of man himself, but of the advent of a new social harmony of which there are presentiments only in the vast domains of Utopia. At the date of the event the Nobel Prize will be one hundred years old and only then will it be possible to make a complete balance sheet of what the Nobel Foundation and the connected prize have contributed to the formation of a new system of community life, be it that of universal well-being or malaise, but of such an extent as to put an end, at least for many centuries, to the centuries-long diatribe on the meaning of life. I refer to human life and not to the appearance of the amino-acids which dates back several thousand million years, substances which made possible the apparition of man and perhaps already contained the project of him. In this case how long the step of the deus absconditus is! But I do not intend to stray from my subject and I wonder if the conviction on which the statute of the Nobel Prize is based is justified: and that is that sciences, not all on the same level, and literary works have contributed to the spread and defence of new values in a broad "humanistic" sense. The response is certainly affirmative. The register of the names of those who, having given something to humanity, have received the coveted recognition of the Nobel Prize would be long. But infinitely more numerous and practically impossible to identify would be the legion, the army of those who work for humanity in infinite ways even without realizing it and who never aspire to any possible prize because they have not written works, acts or academic treatises and have never thought of "making the presses groan", as the Italian expression says. There certainly exists an army of pure, immaculate souls, and they are an obstacle (certainly insufficient) to the spread of that utilitarian spirit which in various degrees is pushed to the point of corruption, crime and every form of violence and intolerance. The academicians of Stockholm have often said no to intolerance, cruel fanaticism and that persecuting spirit which turns the strong against the weak, oppressors against the oppressed. This is true particularly in their choice of literary works, works which can sometimes be murderous, but never like that atomic bomb which is the most mature fruit of the eternal tree of evil."

{from Montale's Nobel Lecture}

quasimodo1

10-10-2008, 01:47 PM

In Search of the Present
"I begin with two words that all men have uttered since the dawn of humanity: thank you. The word gratitude has equivalents in every language and in each tongue the range of meanings is abundant. In the Romance languages this breadth spans the spiritual and the physical, from the divine grace conceded to men to save them from error and death, to the bodily grace of the dancing girl or the feline leaping through the undergrowth. Grace means pardon, forgiveness, favour, benefice, inspiration; it is a form of address, a pleasing style of speaking or painting, a gesture expressing politeness, and, in short, an act that reveals spiritual goodness. Grace is gratuitous; it is a gift. The person who receives it, the favoured one, is grateful for it; if he is not base, he expresses gratitude. That is what I am doing at this very moment with these weightless words. I hope my emotion compensates their weightlessness. If each of my words were a drop of water, you would see through them and glimpse what I feel: gratitude, acknowledgement. And also an indefinable mixture of fear, respect and surprise at finding myself here before you, in this place which is the home of both Swedish learning and world literature.

Languages are vast realities that transcend those political and historical entities we call nations. The European languages we speak in the Americas illustrate this. The special position of our literatures when compared to those of England, Spain, Portugal and France depends precisely on this fundamental fact: they are literatures written in transplanted tongues. Languages are born and grow from the native soil, nourished by a common history. The European languages were rooted out from their native soil and their own tradition, and then planted in an unknown and unnamed world: they took root in the new lands and, as they grew within the societies of America, they were transformed. They are the same plant yet also a different plant. Our literatures did not passively accept the changing fortunes of the transplanted languages: they participated in the process and even accelerated it. They very soon ceased to be mere transatlantic reflections: at times they have been the negation of the literatures of Europe; more often, they have been a reply."

{from the Nobel Lecture by Octavio Paz}

quasimodo1

10-10-2008, 01:52 PM

Akhmatova was born at Bolshoy Fontan in Odessa, Ukraine. Her childhood does not appear to have been happy; her parents separated in 1905. She was educated in Tsarskoe Selo (where she first met her future husband, Nikolay Gumilyov) and in Kyiv. Anna started writing poetry at the age of 11, inspired by her favourite poets: Racine, Pushkin, and Baratynsky. As her father did not want to see any verses printed under his "respectable" name, she chose to adopt the surname of her Tatar grandmother as a pseudonym. .

Grey-Eyed King (1910)
Hail to thee, o, inconsolate pain!
The young grey-eyed king has been yesterday slain.

That autumnal evening was stuffy and red.
My husband, returning, had quietly said,

"He'd left for his hunting; they carried him home;
They found him under the old oak's dome.

I pity his queen. He, so young, passed away!...
During one night her black hair turned to grey."

He picked up his pipe from the fireplace shelf,
And went off to work for the night by himself.

Now my daughter I will wake up and rise --
And I will look in her little grey eyes...

And murmuring poplars outside can be heard:
Your king is no longer here on this earth.
Many of the male Russian poets of the time declared their love for Akhmatova; she reciprocated the attentions of Osip Mandelstam, whose wife, Nadezhda Mandelstam, would eventually forgive Akhmatova in her autobiography, Hope Against Hope. In 1910, she married the boyish poet, Nikolay Gumilyov, who very soon left her for lion hunting in Africa, the battlefields of World War I, and the society of Parisian grisettes. Her husband did not take her poems seriously, and was shocked when Alexander Blok declared to him that he preferred her poems to his. Their son, Lev, born in 1912, was to become a famous Neo-Eurasianist historian.

Silver Age
In 1912, she published her first collection, entitled Evening. It contained brief, psychologically taut pieces which English readers may find distantly reminiscent of Robert Browning and Thomas Hardy. They were acclaimed for their classical diction, telling details, and the skilful use of colour. By the time her second collection, the Rosary, appeared in 1914, there were thousands of women composing poems "in honour of Akhmatova." Her early poems usually picture a man and a woman involved in the most poignant, ambiguous moment of their relationship. Such pieces were much imitated and later parodied by Nabokov and others. Akhmatova was prompted to exclaim: "I taught our women how to speak, but don't know how to make them silent".

Together with her husband, Akhmatova enjoyed a high reputation in the circle of Acmeist poets. Her aristocratic manners and artistic integrity won her the titles "Queen of the Neva" and "Soul of the Silver Age," as the period came to be known in the history of Russian poetry. Many decades later, she would recall this blessed time of her life in the longest of her works, "Poem Without a Hero" (1940–65), inspired by Pushkin's Eugene Onegin.
{from the reference section of dictionary.com}

quasimodo1

10-10-2008, 01:55 PM

Her years at Vassar were tremendously important to Bishop. There she met Marianne Moore, a fellow poet who also became a lifelong friend. Working with a group of students that included Mary McCarthy, Eleanor Clark, and Margaret Miller, she founded the short-lived but influential literary journal Con Spirito, which was conceived as an alternative to the well-established Vassar Review. After graduating, Bishop lived in New York and traveled extensively in France, Spain, Ireland, Italy, and North Africa. Her poetry is filled with descriptions of her journeys and the sights she saw. In 1938, she moved to Key West, where she wrote many of the poems that eventually were collected in her Pulitzer Prize-winning North and South. In 1944 she left Key West, and for fourteen years she lived in Brazil, where she and her lover, the architect Lota de Macedo Soares, became a curiosity in the town of Pétropolis. After Soares took her own life in 1967, Bishop spent less time in Brazil than in New York, San Francisco, and Massachusetts, where she took a teaching position at Harvard in 1970. That same year, she recieved a National Book Award in Poetry for The Complete Poems. Her reputation increased greatly in the years just prior to her death, particularly after the 1976 publication of Geography III and her winning of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.

Bishop worked as a painter as well as a poet, and her verse, like visual art, is known for its ability to capture significant scenes. Though she was independently wealthy and thus enjoyed a life of some privilege, much of her poetry celebrates working-class settings: busy factories, farms, and fishing villages. Analyzing her small but significant body of work for Bold Type, Ernie Hilbert wrote: "Bishop's poetics is one distinguished by tranquil observation, craft-like accuracy, care for the small things of the world, a miniaturist's discretion and attention. Unlike the pert and wooly poetry that came to dominate American literature by the second half of her life, her poems are balanced like Alexander Calder mobiles, turning so subtly as to seem almost still at first, every element, every weight of meaning and song, poised flawlessly against the next."
{this is quoted from the Poetry Foundation website}

quasimodo1

10-10-2008, 02:01 PM

Sylvia Plath (1932 - 1963)
In the six months before her suicide in a London flat, SYLVIA PLATH (1932-1963) produced poems of shocking intensity

at a fever pitch; collected in Ariel (1965), these won her enduring posthumous fame. Born in Massachusetts and

educated at Smith College, Plath had crossed the Atlantic with her English husband, the poet Ted Hughes; he and two

young children survived her. Among Plath’s other popular works is The Bell Jar, (1963) an autobiographical novel.
{from the Poetry Foundation}----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-Sleep in the Mojave Desert
by Sylvia Plath

Out here there are no hearthstones,
Hot grains, simply. It is dry, dry.
And the air dangerous. Noonday acts queerly
On the mind’s eye, erecting a line
Of poplars in the middle distance, the only
Object beside the mad, straight road
One can remember men and houses by.
A cool wind should inhabit those leaves
And a dew collect on them, dearer than money,
In the blue hour before sunup.
Yet they recede, untouchable as tomorrow,
Or those glittery fictions of spilt water
That glide ahead of the very thirsty.

{first stanza, of two}

Virgil

10-10-2008, 05:25 PM

To all the Plath disenters: Ok, that was one poem "Daddy". I'm sure there is a poem by everyone who has ever written that I can find I don't like. But you are indicting her entire work. Surely she was young and didn't get a chance to write fully and reach her maturity. I'm not saying she's the greatest poet of the 20th century, but I thnk there are enough poems of quality to put her in the canon. Here's possibly my favorite Plath poem:

Fever 103°
by Sylvia Plath

Pure? What does it mean?
The tongues of hell
Are dull, dull as the triple

Tongues of dull, fat Cerebus
Who wheezes at the gate. Incapable
Of licking clean

The aguey tendon, the sin, the sin.
The tinder cries.
The indelible smell

Of a snuffed candle!
Love, love, the low smokes roll
From me like Isadora's scarves, I'm in a fright

One scarf will catch and anchor in the wheel.
Such yellow sullen smokes
Make their own element. They will not rise,

But trundle round the globe
Choking the aged and the meek,
The weak

Hothouse baby in its crib,
The ghastly orchid
Hanging its hanging garden in the air,

Devilish leopard!
Radiation turned it white
And killed it in an hour.
[Snip]

http://www.famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/sylvia_plath/poems/18937

Read the whole thing because the ending fabulous. ;)

Jozanny

10-10-2008, 06:09 PM

stlukesguild

10-10-2008, 06:14 PM

Eugenio Montale was one of the giants of 20th century poetry, standing along side the likes of T.S. Eliot, Yeats, Rilke, Pasternak, Wallace Stevens, etc... He was most certainly the most important Modern Italian poet... probably THE most important Italian poet since Leopardi. At a time when Italian poetry had slid into a sort of decorative effete mannerism not unlike the worst indulgences of Victorian poetry and Symbolism, Montale brought about a new clarity... a new muscularity... a new Modernism. Montale brought an international awareness to his poetry. As an avid autodidact he was well read in Shakespeare, browning, Donne, Gerald Manley Hopkins, Henry James, Baudelaire, Mallarme, Valery, Rilke. Montale also was a voracious but selective reader of Italian classics. The three major poets to inspire and challenge Montale were D'Annunzio, Leopardi, and Dante. Inspired by the example of T.S. Eliot, who Montale realized was greatly responsible for bringing about a muscular new manner of English poetry while maintaining a profound debt and admiration for the achievements of the past, Montale confronted his Italian predecessors... especially Dante... head on.

In limine

Rejoice when the breeze that enters the orchard
brings you back the tidal rush of life:
here, where dead memories
mesh and founder,
was no garden, but a reliquary.

That surge you hear is no whir of wings,
but the stirring of the eternal womb.
Look how this strip of lonely coast
has been transformed: a crucible.

All is furor within the sheer wall.
Advance and you may chance upon
the phantasm who might save you:
here are tales composed, and deeds
annulled, for the future to enact.

Find a break in the meshes of the net
that tightens around us, leap out, flee!
Go, I have prayed for your escape- now my thirst
will be slaked, my rancor less bitter...

Eugenio Montale
from Cuttlefish Bones
tr. William Arrowsmith

Godi se il vento ch'entra nel pomario
vi rimena l'ondata della vita:
qui dove affonda un morto
viluppo di memorie,
orto non era, ma reliquiario.

Il frullo che tu senti non è un volo,
ma il commuoversi dell'eterno grembo;
vedi che si trasforma questo lembo
di terra solitario in un crogiuolo.

Un rovello è di qua dall'erto muro.
Se procedi t'imbatti
tu forse nel fantasma che ti salva:
si compongono qui le storie, gli atti
scancellati pel giuoco del futuro.

Cerca una maglia rotta nella rete
che ci stringe, tu balza fuori, fuggi!
Va, per te l'ho pregato, - ora la sete
mi sarà lieve, meno acre la ruggine ...

Dark Muse

10-10-2008, 06:36 PM

I am not quite sure I understand Acmeism, from the short summaries I am reading on it. Not to impose, but this might be a useful mini-discussion for me.[/COLOR]

An anqutience of mine first brought Acmeism to my attention. I find it to be quite interesting, and Akhmatova is my favorite of the few poets I have thus read within the Acmesim movement. There is something about this form of poetry which appeals to me.

In the first round of voting I voted for her.

quasimodo1

10-10-2008, 06:39 PM

JoZ and all: Let me explain the intricate calculus of the vote...a first choice vote=1.oo points/ a second choice vote= 0.50 points/ a third place choice= 0.33 points. As of last night, late, the tally was Tate (2.00), Paz (1.00), Montale (1.00), Plath (1.00), and Bishop (0.83). I need to check the last posts for changes.

quasimodo1

10-10-2008, 06:44 PM

acmeism = a school of early 20th-century Russian poetry whose practitioners were strongly opposed to the vagueness of symbolism and strove for absolute clarity of expression through precise, concrete imagery.

Jozanny

10-10-2008, 06:57 PM

Virgil

10-10-2008, 07:46 PM

Ok here's my vote:

First: Montale
Second: Plath :D
Third: Tate

Jozanny

10-10-2008, 08:10 PM

Ok here's my vote:

First: Montale
Second: Plath :D
Third: Tate

I know I am asking for trouble, but how can such a discerning reader like yourself prefer Plath before Tate Virgil? I have only recently discovered the man, but my poet's nose certainly knows the difference between a Pinto and a Thoroughbred.

Virgil

10-10-2008, 08:24 PM

I know I am asking for trouble, but how can such a discerning reader like yourself prefer Plath before Tate Virgil? I have only recently discovered the man, but my poet's nose certainly knows the difference between a Pinto and a Thoroughbred.

I probably have read Tate somewhere but I can't remember any of his work. I didn't say that I prefered Plath over anyone. I just said her work was not bad. Plus I picked Plath second because it would be a fiesty discussion. ;)

Jozanny

10-10-2008, 08:34 PM

I probably have read Tate somewhere but I can't remember any of his work. I didn't say that I prefered Plath over anyone. I just said her work was not bad. Plus I picked Plath second because it would be a fiesty discussion. ;)

And here I thought you and I had both learned a thing or two about thriving on conflict:p.

Seriously, Plath is so close to Bukowski in motivational impetus that your defense surprises me. JBI's astute objections aside, from what I know of the literary criticism out there, her reputation is in decline, deservedly, but I will make that case later.

quasimodo1

10-10-2008, 08:39 PM

First let me admit my vote: Tate (1), McGuckian (2), Montale (3). Members...Bitterfly, Il Penseroso, Petrarch's Love, Quark, Sofia 82, Epistemophile, Dapper Drake, Mortalterror and Kafka's Crow have not gone to the poll.

stlukesguild

10-10-2008, 08:50 PM

I picked Plath second because it would be a fiesty discussion.;)

Perhaps... :lol:If JBI or I... or JoZ were to participate it might be more along the line of a feeding frenzy.

quasimodo1

10-10-2008, 09:00 PM

Right now, unless some of the slacker members vote, (I mean that respectfully), we are in a dead heat for first...Montale and Tate. The illustrious and embattled Plath is third or second.

Virgil

10-10-2008, 09:09 PM

Seriously, Plath is so close to Bukowski in motivational impetus that your defense surprises me.
No I disagree with that. She may be sensational like Bukowski but that's neither here nor there. Shakespeare was sensational. Bukowski's use of language is like a buffoon; Plath has a fine writing voice and really stresses the language for tension. I agree she can be juvinile at times, but she did not fully mature as a writer. She was young. But sometimes she hits it.

JBI's astute objections aside, from what I know of the literary criticism out there, her reputation is in decline, deservedly, but I will make that case later.
Well, evaluations go up and down. All I'm saying is she belongs in the canon of American poetry of the post WWII era. Hemingway's reputation goes up and down and he's still in the canon.

Jozanny

10-10-2008, 09:17 PM

Right now, unless some of the slacker members vote, (I mean that respectfully), we are in a dead heat for first...Montale and Tate. The illustrious and embattled Plath is third or second.

I have faith that Petrarch Love's discrimination will save us from disaster.:D

stlukesguild

10-10-2008, 09:46 PM

I have faith that Petrarch Love's discrimination will save us from disaster.

Yes... but then there's always MortalTerror who may just vote for Plath simply because JBI and I have expressed a dislike for her work.:D

quasimodo1

10-10-2008, 10:00 PM

More Sonnets At Christmas
by Allen Tate

(1942)

To Denis Devlin

I

Again the native hour lets down the locks
Uncombed and black, but gray the bobbing beard;
Ten years ago His eyes, fierce shuttlecocks,
Pierced the close net of what I failed: I feared
The belly-cold, the grave-clout, that betrayed
Me dithering in the drift of cordial seas;
Ten years are time enough to be dismayed
By mummy Christ, head crammed between his knees.

Suppose I take an arrogant bomber, stroke
By stroke, up to the frazzled sun to hear
Sun-ghostlings whisper: Yes, the capital yoke—
Remove it and there’s not a ghost to fear
This crucial day, whose decapitate joke
Languidly winds into the inner ear.

II

The day’s at end and there’s nowhere to go,
Draw to the fire, even this fire is dying;
Get up and once again politely lying
Invite the ladies toward the mistletoe
With greedy eyes that stare like an old crow.
How pleasantly the holly wreaths did hang
And how stuffed Santa did his reindeer clang
Above the golden oaken mantel, years ago!

Then hang this picture for a calendar,
As sheep for goat, and pray most fixedly
For the cold martial progress of your star,
With thoughts of commerce and society,
Well-milked Chinese, Negroes who cannot sing,
The Huns gelded and feeding in a ring.

III

Give me this day a faith not personal
As follows: The American people fully armed
With assurance policies, righteous and harmed,
Battle the world of which they’re not at all.
That lying boy of ten who stood in the hall,
His hat in hand (thus by his father charmed:
“You may be President”), was not alarmed
Nor even left uneasy by his fall.

Nobody said that he could be a plumber,
Carpenter, clerk, bus-driver, bombardier;
Let little boys go into violent slumber,
Aegean squall and squalor where their fear
Is of an enemy in remote oceans
Unstalked by Christ: these are the better notions.
{excerpt}

JBI

10-10-2008, 10:04 PM

Dark Muse

10-10-2008, 10:08 PM

I will pull for Montale between those two. Never read any of his work but I am not much of a fan of Tate. I suppose some of his stuff is somewhat interesting but all in all don't care for him.

Petrarch's Love

10-10-2008, 10:51 PM

I have faith that Petrarch Love's discrimination will save us from disaster.:D

Goodness! My vote seems to unexpectedly have become a topic of discussion. I could become corrupted by this unexpected power and perversely vote Plath.:D Of course, that might mean I would have to discuss her work, which, I'm not particularly tempted by. Thus my vote stands:

1. Montale
2. Bishop
3. Tate

quasimodo1

10-10-2008, 11:04 PM

update on the vote: Paz=1.00/ Akhmatova=0.50/ Montale=3.66/ McGuckian=0.50/ Bishop=1.33/ Plath=2.00/ Tate=2.66. Somebody get another registered voter out here. The poet in the lead at midnight will win the day. Zarathustra thus spake.

Jozanny

10-10-2008, 11:41 PM

I have no great problem with Montale that I know of; that he is an Italian modernist doesn't automatically earn him my featly (and I can see Virgil raise an eyebrow, given my largesse toward the homeland...) but I am still stuck in the same refrain of journeying for my supper. I will not take the bus to Paley simply for a book of poetry--because; however, if I can manage with my ailing chair, I'll check the public branch next week, although I am hesitant to be optimistic.

I purchased Tate to treat myself, and believe he is worth a rare dessert, but I can't splurge on too much for the sake of this club.

JBI

10-11-2008, 12:04 AM

AS it is 12:00 now, I guess we can say Montale has won? If so, can we start selecting editions? Preferably a bilingual one, but that is not a necessity - the most readily available large one I can seem to find is this one: http://www.amazon.com/Collected-Poems-1920-1954-Revised-Bilingual/dp/0374526257/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223697430&sr=8-1 and I can't seem to find a complete works, but the reviews, if they are to be trusted, seem to be conflicting. Perhaps we would prefer a single volume however?

quasimodo1

10-11-2008, 12:13 AM

JBI: [Collected Poems, 1920-1954: Revised Bilingual Edition (Paperback)
by Eugenio Montale (Author), Jonathan Galassi (Translator)] This collection sounds perfect and bilingual is best, as far as I'm concerned. I'm waiting for Stlukes. to suggest one, as per my request, since he is more familiar than I. Thanks. PS: B&N has this text also... http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?SZE=10&WRD=Eugenio+Montale&SAT=1

quasimodo1

10-11-2008, 12:38 AM

"Doubt" from The Collected Poems (1920-1954)
Published by Farrar Straus Giroux - Translated by Jonathan Galassi
Obtained from Musil Institute

I was giving a lecture
to the "Friends of Cacania"
on the subject "Is Life Likely?"
when I remembered I
was totally agnostic,
love and hate in equal parts and the outcome
unsure, depending on the moment.
Then I decided five minutes
were enough--
two and a half for the thesis
two and a half for the antithesis
this was the only homage possible
for a man without qualities.
I spoke exactly thirty-five seconds.
And when I said
that yes and no were look alikes
shouts and whispers interrupted my talk
and I awoke. It was the most laconic dream
of my life, maybe the only one not devoid
of "quality."

{this early tidbit from Project Muse}

JBI

10-11-2008, 12:46 AM

quasimodo1

10-11-2008, 12:50 AM

I have access to it but I just enrolled so it might take some time.

mortalterror

10-11-2008, 01:18 AM

Yes... but then there's always MortalTerror who may just vote for Plath simply because JBI and I have expressed a dislike for her work.:D

I was actually trying to keep out of that mess; but incidentally I loved her book, and liked some of the poems I've read by her. When I read The Bell Jar in high school, I thought it was Catcher in the Rye for chicks, which would explain why you wouldn't go for it.

My earlier participation was prompted more out of a love of Ovid than an interest in Roethke. I don't know much about these modern poets; but I'm sure whatever you choose will be fine.

stlukesguild

10-11-2008, 01:22 AM

If Montale were to be selected I would suggest one of two highly regarded translators. The first is William Arrowsmith; the second is Jonathan Galassi. Both translations have been acclaimed by some rather discerning critics including Anthony Hecht and Harold Bloom, although I personally prefer Arrowsmith's translations... but then again, these are the ones I was first introduced to Montale on. The Galassi translation can be seen here:

http://www.amazon.com/Collected-Poems-1920-1954-Revised-Bilingual/dp/0374526257/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223704695&sr=1-1

This volume includes Montale's three major collections: Cuttlefish Bones, The Occasions, and The Storm and other Poems. It might be the best deal if someone were to wish for a broader survey of the poet's work. Arrowsmith translated all three of these volumes as well as Satura, a volume of late poems. Unfortunately only Satura and Cuttlefish Bones are still in print. On the other hand, A complete survey of Montale's work might be too much to begin with. Cuttlefish Bones is a seminal collection... not unlike The Wasteland and other Poems, Pasternak's My Sister-Life, Rilke's New Poems or Duino Elegies, etc... It contains many of Montale's most famous poems and is far less hermetic than some of the later work. It might also be more informative to explore a body of work intended as a unified whole as opposed to a retrospective volume.

http://www.amazon.com/Cuttlefish-Bones-1920-1927-Eugenio-Montale/dp/0393311716/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223704695&sr=1-2

Either volume contains both the Italian and the English facing... useful for JBI and Petrarch. Both are also voluminously annotated. Again... if Montale were/is the clear winner of the poll I have no problem with using either of these books... both of which I own... but I would again lean toward Arrosmith who seems to be THE Montale translator much as Hamburger is THE Holderlin translator.

mortalterror

10-11-2008, 01:35 AM

William Arrowsmith is the man! His translation of Petronius' Satyricon is amazing; some of the best I've ever seen. His translations of Euripides are also pretty great. He has a collection of the ancient Greek plays translated entirely by poets, which beats the heck out of those cheap Grene and Lattimore volumes everyone's always buying.

quasimodo1

10-11-2008, 01:54 AM

If you, Mortal and Stlukes are in enthusiastic agreement on Arrowsmith, then I'll try to make sure whatever collection we use will be translated by him. The two comparisons that Stlukes sent seem to prove your point. Montale looks to be a fascinating study.

stlukesguild

10-11-2008, 01:55 AM

stlukesguild

10-11-2008, 02:03 AM

PS... I fixed the broken links to Amazon and the two translations discussed... including Arrowsmith's Cuttlefish Bones.

http://www.amazon.com/Cuttlefish-Bones-1920-1927-Eugenio-Montale/dp/0393311716/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223704695&sr=1-2

Bitterfly

10-11-2008, 06:15 AM

Answering Quasimodo, who doesn't seem to be authorised to receive messages, for some reason! :D

I did go and look at the choice of poets that was offered, but didn't feel eligible to vote, for a simple reason: I have a lot of work to do, and don't have easy access to the books you've put up for the vote! So I'll be following what you all say with a lot of interest, but don't know if I'll be able to join in very much, therefore I felt I shouldn't be trying to impose my preferences!

Plus I'm not really sure about the relevance of studying poets in translation - reading them for pleasure, why not (although I like to have the original under my eyes). I probably would have voted for Bishop or Plath for that reason (and there, I've ended up choosing :D).

Virgil

10-11-2008, 09:11 AM

JBI

10-11-2008, 10:04 AM

So has it been decided? Is it Montale? If so I will need to order the book. I guess that Arrowsmith translation is the preferred? But unfotunately the Arrowsmith book only has seven years worth of Montale's poetry, while the other one has a life span.

Half life - it goes up to 54 I believe, but he published past that - though apparently not too much.

Now I feel bad for not buying that complete poems copy I saw in an Italian book store for 9 Euros (hardcover). Though it wouldn't have the English, it would have had the complete selection - oh well, opted for Campana instead for some reason.

Petrarch's Love

10-11-2008, 10:10 AM

Looks great. I put in a vote for Montale because I know next to nothing about him but have long meant to look into his stuff. I'll most likely be able to access any volume you decide on at our university library, so just give the heads up when you've decided on the book.

William Arrowsmith is the man! His translation of Petronius' Satyricon is amazing; some of the best I've ever seen. His translations of Euripides are also pretty great. He has a collection of the ancient Greek plays translated entirely by poets, which beats the heck out of those cheap Grene and Lattimore volumes everyone's always buying.

Nonsense. Everyone knows it's simply not done to buy anything but Loeb editions. Festive, Christmas-like red and green shelves are the badge of honor of the dead language geek! :D Seriously, though, I am also an Arrowsmith fan. I didn't know he had done Italian translation too, so I'll be interested to look at his work with Montale.

JBI

10-11-2008, 10:57 AM

How about we try his first anthology, Cuttlefish Bones, then?

quasimodo1

10-11-2008, 02:58 PM

JBI: This "cuttlefish" collection...it is bilingual, correct? Looks like we will be purchasing the text and I'm willing to transfer any text to file...in order to transmit the material to anyone who needs to avoid spending thier hard-earned funds. Looks like you, Stlukes, Jozanny and Virgil have the podium, (snickering), until at least 9 or 10PM.

stlukesguild

10-11-2008, 07:21 PM

Yes... it is bilingual and contains a good amount of notes... although not as many as the Galassi edition. Shall we set a day/time to begin? I'll need some time to brush through the work, but I do have one poem I'd like to put out for discussion.

quasimodo1

10-11-2008, 10:53 PM

This will be our text/collection by Eugenio Montale, translated by William Arrowsmith. -- http://www.amazon.com/Cuttlefish-Bones-1920-1927-Eugenio-Montale/dp/0393311716/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223704695&sr=1-2 Again, anyone without this text [which right now includes me] not to worry as poems discussed will be transmitted via PM as needed. For some examples of Montale's poetry, you can visit agni online. -- http://www-test.bu.edu/agni/poetry/print/2002/56-montale.html .

Kafka's Crow

10-12-2008, 07:38 AM

"I am always a bit too late, in everything that needs be done"

Couldn't find Cuttlefish Bones on Amazon UK. Ordered it from the US site, should be here soon. I am just a follower here, lead me anywhere you want. I am glad Plath wasn't chosen, though. These are all new poets to me. Ask me about Haney, Hughes, Zephanayah, Motion etc. My world of contemporary poetry world is either too narrowly British/Irish or totally and utterly Oriental! Nothing in between except some course-work related American poets. I, the novice, bow to the will of the more enlightened ones in this group.

P.S: Sorry I couldn't vote. Had I voted, I would have definitely chosen Montale as I did not want to touch my copy of The Bell Jar.

quasimodo1

10-12-2008, 07:44 PM

"cuttlefish, common name applied to cephalopod mollusks that have 10 tentacles, or arms, 8 of which have muscular suction cups on their inner surface and 2 that are longer and can shoot out for grasping prey, and a reduced internal shell enbedded in the enveloping mantle. The body is short, broad, and flattened. Cuttlefish are carnivorous and excellent at capturing prey with their arms.
Although good swimmers, they are not as fast as the related squids, but like the squids cuttlefish have lateral fins used as stabilizers and for steering and propulsion. They swim by jet propulsion, forcibly expelling water through a siphon. During the day they lie buried in the bottom of the ocean; at night they swim and hunt for food.

Except for the squid genus Loligo, cuttlefish have the best cephalopod eyes, which are highly complex. When disturbed, cuttlefish eject a cloud of dark brown ink from an ink sac for protection. The ink gland and ink sac are specializations of the rectal gland. The ink is composed mostly of melanin and has been used as the artist's pigment, sepia. All cuttlefish are dioecious, i.e., the sexes are separate.

The common, worldwide, deepwater cuttlefish, genus Spirula, is considered a "living fossil" because it possesses a remnant of the external shell of the ancient cephalopods. These cuttlefish have a small, coiled internal shell containing a bubble of gas (nitrogen), which serves as a float in the ocean. The European cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis, possesses a degenerate internal shell composed of lime, which is popularly called cuttlebone. Within the narrow spaces between the thin septa of the shell are fluid and gas (mostly nitrogen), which give the organism buoyancy. These cuttlefish are found in the Mediterranean and E Atlantic. The cuttlebone is used for pet birds as a source of lime salts. Sepia are able to undergo a complex of color changes ranging from pink to brown with varying stripes and spots, usually displayed when they are disturbed. The eggs, deposited singly and attached by a stalk to objects on the ocean bottom, are extremely large, up to .6 in. (15 mm) in diameter. The smallest cuttlefish, Idiosepius, inhabits tide pools and attains a length of .6 in. (15 mm). Cuttlefish are classified in the phylum Mollusca, class Cephalopoda, order Sepioidea." {from dictionary.com}

Virgil

10-12-2008, 08:09 PM

Well, I ordered Cuttlefish. I should get it by the end of the week. :D

Jozanny

10-12-2008, 08:25 PM

Well, I ordered Cuttlefish. I should get it by the end of the week. :D

I am not yet; if I am finicky about the quality of the literature I read, I am a terror when it comes to poetry, and Tate merited my money because of TNR's analysis of his modernism, and he had better measure up. I am thinking of ditching my Plath and I already have my signed Joel Oppenheimer on the auction block. Joel had that winsome homespun personality honed to a T on the stage, but when I looked into his eyes, he was an angry cold and dying old man who frightened me, and neither his work nor Judith Johnson's appreciation of him makes up for it.

I hate about 93% of the poems I read, including mine. Petrarch was onto something when she gleaned that my demands insist on triumph.

quasimodo1

10-12-2008, 09:10 PM

Xenia I
by Eugenio Montale
(translated from the Italian by William Arrowsmith)

1
Dear little insect
nicknamed Mosca, who knows why,
this evening, when it was nearly dark,
while I was reading Deutero-Isaiah,
you reappeared at my side,
but without your glasses
you couldn’t see me,
and in the blur, without their glitter,
I didn’t know who you were.
2
Minus glasses and antennae,
poor insect, wingèd
only in imagination,
a beaten-up Bible and none
too plausible either, black night,
a flash of lightning, thunder, and then
not even the storm. Could it be
you left so soon, and without
a word? But it’s crazy, my thinking
you still had lips.
3
At the St. James in Paris I’ll have to ask for
a room for one. (They don’t like
single guests.) Ditto
in the fake Byzantium of your Venetian
hotel; and then, right off, hunting down
the girls at the switchboard,
your old pals; and then leaving again
the minute my three minutes are up,
and the wanting you back,
if only in one gesture,
one habit of yours.
4
We’d worked out a whistle for the world
beyond, a token of recognition.
Now I’m giving it a try, hoping
we’re all dead already and don’t know it.
5
I ’ve never figured out whether I
was your faithful dog with runny eyes
or you were mine.
To others you were a myopic little bug
bewildered by the twaddle
of high society. They were naïve,
those clever folk, never guessing
they were the butt of your humor:
that you could see them even in the dark,
unmasked by your infallible sixth sense,
your bat’s radar.
6
You never thought of leaving your mark
by writing prose or verse. This
was your charm—and later my self-revulsion.
It was what I dreaded too: that someday
you’d shove me back into the croaking
bog of “modern poets.”
{6 of 14 parts}

stlukesguild

10-12-2008, 09:24 PM

Xenia I (there's a Xenia II as well) is from the collection Satura, first published in 1971.

JBI

10-12-2008, 10:30 PM

Virgil

10-12-2008, 10:39 PM

Shall we perhaps create a new thread for the new discussion? I think this one is getting too long, and perhaps if we cut it now, we can make discussions easier to find, and perhaps keep up the discussion on older poets that we have discussed. Just a thought.

I asked Quasi that very question in a PM. I guess we could do another poet here. I don't think it makes a difference.

Jozanny

10-16-2008, 03:48 PM

I am not sure what happened to Montale and his Cuttlefish Bones (clever post modern title, that) but I have not gotten down to Vine Street yet, where the free library sits like an absurd edifice, mocking neo-classicism more than honoring it in the breech. It isn't that I can't do it in the ailing Quickie frame. It is more my ailing frame that is the issue:D. I am under the weather, despite being the Big Sister who has taken up right where mom left off, taking care of her whining spoiled brats who cannot live within their means. It still throws me that I have to take care of them because I am cautious and frugal and still so strong in the middle age of my disability... I can't even begin to convey the irony of it to the rest of you without getting tooooooooooooooo personal, but in the interior weakness of my mind's indulging itself, I have Tate's Collected Poems, adding to the satisfaction of my personal library. Did not look at it yet, nor the introduction by Christopher Benfey.

Don't know Benfey.

What I wanted to add though, is I missed out getting to the analysis of Tate's modernism in bothTNR and The New Criterion in time, before they both went to archive:(, so if any of you do find such an analysis that I could look at without a paywall, it would delight me; not that I will not keep snooting the tubers on my own:p!

Now I have to go email my brother and plead patience while he waits for rescue, because I am nothing if not phlegm today; then I will zip down to the lobby mailbox.

I don't know what the issue is with some of you about the bookclub thread length, but I don't have any problem with continuing on.

Virgil

10-16-2008, 06:37 PM

I am not sure what happened to Montale and his Cuttlefish Bones (clever post modern title, that) but I have not gotten down to Vine Street yet, where the free library sits like an absurd edifice, mocking neo-classicism more than honoring it in the breech. It isn't that I can't do it in the ailing Quickie frame. It is more my ailing frame that is the issue:D. I am under the weather, despite being the Big Sister who has taken up right where mom left off, taking care of her whining spoiled brats who cannot live within their means. It still throws me that I have to take care of them because I am cautious and frugal and still so strong in the middle age of my disability... I can't even begin to convey the irony of it to the rest of you without getting tooooooooooooooo personal, but in the interior weakness of my mind's indulging itself, I have Tate's Collected Poems, adding to the satisfaction of my personal library. Did not look at it yet, nor the introduction by Christopher Benfey.

Don't know Benfey.

What I wanted to add though, is I missed out getting to the analysis of Tate's modernism in bothTNR and The New Criterion in time, before they both went to archive:(, so if any of you do find such an analysis that I could look at with a paywall, it would delight me; not that I will not keep snooting the tubers on my own:p!

Now I have to go email my brother and plead patience while he waits for rescue, because I am nothing if not phlegm today; then I will zip down to the lobby mailbox.

I don't know what the issue is with some of you about the bookclub thread length, but I don't have and problem with continuing on.

Jozy, Quasi had a personal issue come up which would take him a few days. I'm still waiting for the book to come from amazon. I think StLukes was slated to pick the first poem.

I hope you feel better. I know it can be one of those days. I've been so busy at work that I'm pretty exhausted when I get home.

Petrarch's Love

10-16-2008, 07:02 PM

Ah, if we're starting soon I'd better go pick up the book at the library tomorrow.

Jozy--Sorry to hear you're having one of those no good sort of days. I hope you feel better soon. I have access to some journals via my university proxy and found an article in New Criterion from 2001, titled "The Violence of Allen Tate" by David Yezzi. Is that the article you wanted to get hold of? If so, PM me and maybe we can find some way to get it from me to you in pdf form.

Jozanny

10-16-2008, 07:27 PM

stlukesguild

10-16-2008, 07:29 PM

I'll start the posting tomorrow evening (Friday). I am overly tied up with some issues at school and I want to post a brief bio/overview of Montale before we get started. I have been going through both Cuttlefish Bones and the Galassi translation and have an idea where i want to start. I am looking forward to the participation of both JBI and Petrarch in this discussion considering their understanding of Italian and experience with the poets that formed a great part of the tradition in which and against which Montale works: Dante, Cavalcanti, Petrarch, Leopardi, Foscolo, D'Annunzio, etc...

Virgil

10-16-2008, 07:38 PM

That is one of them Petrarch yes! I owe you a future hypothetical lunch, and will PM you in a bit. I have to run for a few.

I have saved most of my New Criterion magazines. If Petrarch doesn't have it, I can go look in my basement and see if I still have that issue. Do you know what month it was included in?

Jozanny

10-16-2008, 10:44 PM

I have saved most of my New Criterion magazines. If Petrarch doesn't have it, I can go look in my basement and see if I still have that issue. Do you know what month it was included in?

Virgil, I will let you know. I sent Petrarch's Love one of my endearing short howls:lol:.

I will try to *do* Vine Street soon. I am willing to keep my gun concealed over Montale until I see if I can read him in Italian and back. I may need a few scribbles and a bug to my father, and so on, but as previously indicated, I am not much for reverence and bowing down to clever form if poets can't do it for me. I'm rotten that way, and agree with my former-prof that Shakespeare's end couplets on his sonnets can get pretty droll.:)

stlukesguild

10-16-2008, 10:48 PM

Jozanny

10-16-2008, 11:11 PM

Well I'm currently reading up on Montale's bio and on some of the critical response to his work. I have also been refreshing myself with Arrowsmith's translations of Cuttlefish Bones. For those who are interested in getting a head start I am looking at tackling Mediterranean, which is a poemetto or short-long poem. It is Montale's longest composition... something of a suite of nine parts possibly inspired in part by Debussy's La mer. I will be looking at the entire suite, but especially section 8:

If only I could force
some fragment of your ecstasy
into this clumsy music of mine...

:rolleyes: @ luke. I am not translating his longest poem, but I also think his longest might be somewhat slightly intimidating to start with? Other members might be encouraged to join in if *we* took it easy on the opening drum roll? I am all for elitism luke, I just published an essay defending it--but I'd like to let the surf tickle my ankles before I sink into my bust line.

marly

10-16-2008, 11:11 PM

Hey, I don't know if this is the right 'room/forum' to be in, but you all seem to enjoy the stuff your reading so maybe you could help me over the next couple of weeks. I am in the fourth week of an 'A' leve English lit' course and as I'm not as young as I used to be and it's been decades since I went to school it's a little harder than I anticipated. We're doing Hardy - poetry and Tess of the D'urbyviles - the poetry I can stand, but Tess goes on and on forever and it really gets me down! After Hardy we do Tenyson and then Stopard, and a couple of others I can't think of at the moment - 'my short term memory's suffered over the years, I'm sort of like a gold fish, - whops it's gone! Anyway, if there is someone out there who can help me out with a couple of hot tips I'd be really pleased to hear from you. thanks

Jozanny

10-16-2008, 11:17 PM

Hi marly, no, this is the poetry book club, and we are just starting the Italian modernist, Montale, or we will if luke doesn't club me over the head:lol:

Anyway, you might want to look in the author's list under Hardy, and start a thread or join one. Welcome to litnet!

One quick question before I log off to the shambles of my former nicely ordered writing life, which may take me another 24 months to reorder again, should I live so long, end vent--in the Arrowsmith Xenia quasi linked, the narrator is reading *Deutero-Isaiah*, which, if memory serves, most scholars believe is not the actual prophet, but either a disciple or imitator, or scribe-Isaiah. I have that right, right?

quasimodo1

10-17-2008, 01:18 AM

Wasn't it S. Beckett who, when asked if he would go to a funeral, said "I never go to those celebrations."? Well, my funeral of the month is over so I can get on with...something. Montale might be a good place to go. Virgil will forgive me for posting this bit a academia, as I first thought it might not be helpfull but...here it is. Bly on Montale... http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/books/nobel-Montale2.pdf It is interesting.

Virgil

10-17-2008, 09:40 PM

My amazon order came in!!:banana: I have the book!!!!:banana::banana: What's the first poem? I'm ready!!!!!! :cool:

Petrarch's Love

10-17-2008, 09:41 PM

Darn, I knew I forgot something at the library today. I'll pick it up tomorrow and join in.

JBI

10-17-2008, 09:49 PM

I get mine tomorrow also, I'll have to wait. If someone wants to suggest one though...

Jozanny

10-17-2008, 11:01 PM

My amazon order came in!!:banana: I have the book!!!!:banana::banana: What's the first poem? I'm ready!!!!!! :cool:

:lol: @ Virgil's post. I will have to depend on quasi's or Petrarch's charity (ouch) until I can see what the main branch could do for me.

I could email them, but the glitch there is my card expired in February, and I have, oddly, not trekked over because I have too much reading in my own collection.

I could buy Montale just as I've bought Tate, but I am going to overwhelm myself if I get stupid on a spree just now. Hoping on early next week for a more real than virtual journey.:D

I think we're all a delightful riot, at that.

stlukesguild

10-17-2008, 11:02 PM

Eugenio Montale- A Brief Background

Eugenio Montale was born in 1896 in Genoa to reasonably affluent parents. Most of his education was attained through his own reading or through his sister, Marianna. She introduced him to St. Augustine, Pascal, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, etc... A large portion of the experiential portion of his education came through the summers spent in the villa of Monterrosso on the Ligurian coast. The stark, harsh, rocky, sun-baked edge of the Mediterranean became etched into the soul of the poet... providing both a physical and a mythical/psychological geographical setting.

Music was Montale's earliest passion and his teacher, Ernesto Sivori, considered him "extremely promising" in his training as an operatic vocalist. Sivori's death in 1923, and his father's opposition to the notion of a career in music led him to abandon his plans. Montale also realized that he lacked the single-minded focus to succeed as a musician: "I had other interests, and maybe I wasn't so dumb: to be a good singer requires a mixture of originality and stupidity."

The largest of these other "interests" was obviously poetry. Montale possessed a furious drive as an autodidact and a reader of world literature. Among his favorites were the French symbolist poets (Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Mallarme, Valery, etc...), the great poets of the Italian tradition: Dante, Guido Cavalcanti, Petrarch, Leopardi, Foscolo, Campana, and D'Annunzio, and among the English-language writers: Shakespeare, Browning, Donne, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Henry James, and T.S. Eliot.

From the beginning Montale imagined a certain affinity with the efforts of T.S. Eliot. He too wished to bring a certain muscularity transcending the mannered, perfumed eloquence of Italian poetry of the time... the work of mandarins who deferred far to much to the authority of the Italian tradition... not unlike the worst examples of late Victorian poets against whom Eliot and the other Modernists struggled. At the same time, Montale wanted nothing to do with the notion of rejecting the tradition as put forth by the Futurists. he wished to embrace yet transcend this tradition: "I wanted to wring the neck of our old aulic language, even at the risk of counter-eloquence."

In a way, Montale imagined his own struggle not unlike those of Dante. Where Dante struggled to take what was largely considered a vulgar language (vulgari eloquentia) and infuse it with an eloquence, a poetry, a grandeur... Montale struggled with a language that in many ways had become too effete and florid. His means to this end included the use of colloquialisms and local dialects... but also a certain classical/Modernist starkness and a sort of "sprung rhythm" not unlike that of Hopkins.

The central core of Montale's oeuvre consists of the three brilliant volumes of poetry, Cuttlefish Bones (Ossi di seppia), the Occasions (Le occasioni), and The Storm (La bufera). Later volumes, including Satura ae certainly essential to gaining a total picture of the poet... but they are also often seen as satirical comments upon the great achievements of these three volumes.

Major elements among Montale's poetry include certain repeated images: the sun scorched Mediterranean coast, the sunflower, the cicada, the mirror, the ditch. Another major theme is the continual use of the poet's muse... an element that has guided Italian poetry across its entire history from Dante and Cavalcanti onward. Montale's muse continually evolves and metamorphoses... certainly building upon the experience of the poet's own lovers... but also alluding to the entire range of poet's muses from the Italian tradition: Cavalcanti's Mandetta, Dante's Beatrice, Petrarch's Laura, Leopardi's Silvia... even Shakespeare's Dark Lady. Still another element... as already suggested... is the poet's writing at the point of a veritable "cultural saturation"... His work can be so heavily layered with allusion and quotation (again, not unlike Eliot) that his work seems an echo chamber or "collage of borrowings". Again... like Eliot... Montale does not use such quotation to out of mere shallow deference to tradition or a desire to raise his own work through a connection with this tradition... but often as a means of illuminating his own contrast with this tradition.

Virgil

10-17-2008, 11:07 PM

:lol: @ Virgil's post. I will have to depend on quasi's or Petrarch's charity (ouch) until I can see what the main branch could do for me.

I could email them, but the glitch there is my card expired in February, and I have, oddly, not treked over because I have too much reading in my own collection.

I could buy Montale just as I've bought Tate, but I am going to overwhelm myself if I get stupid on a spree just now. Hoping on early next week for a more real than virtual journey.:D

I think we're all a delightful riot, at that.

If it's not too ong, and many of the poems don't seem that long, I can type them out and email it to you Jozy. :) Maybe we can take turns typing out a poem for you.

Jozanny

10-17-2008, 11:16 PM

If it's not too ong, and many of the poems don't seem that long, I can type them out and email it to you Jozy. :) Maybe we can take turns typing out a poem for you.

Not if it is too much work mon ami. I think quasi has a system of some sort where he would just pm me copy, not sure--but in this instance, I actually desire a visit to Vine. I have done some research there in humanities, and the librarians seem to love me for putting them to work...but that is another issue.

I do appreciate it.:p

Virgil

10-17-2008, 11:20 PM

Not if it is too much work mon ami. I think quasi has a system of some sort where he would just pm me copy, not sure--but in this instance, I actually desire a visit to Vine. I have done some research there in humanities, and the librarians seem to love me for putting them to work...but that is another issue.

I do appreciate it.:p

We'll get you the poem my dear. :) I guess no one has picked one yet.

stlukesguild

10-17-2008, 11:36 PM

I suppose we may begin with Montale's Mediterranean. As I mentioned earlier it is a suite composed of nine sections. I will begin with section 8 ("If only I could force...")

If only I could force
some fragment of your ecstasy
into this clumsy music of mine;
had I the talent to match your voices
with my stammering speech-
I who once dreamed of acquiring
those salt-sea words of yours
where nature fuses with art-
and with your vast language proclaim the sadness
of an aging boy who shouldn't have learned to think.
But moldy dictionary words
are all I have, and that voice of mystery
dictated by love grows faint,
turns literary, elegaic.
All I have are these words,
that like public women,
offer themselves to any takers;
all I have are these clichés
which student rabble might tomorrow steal
in real poetry.
And your booming grows, and the blue
of the fresh shadow widens.
My thoughts fail, they leave me.
I have no sense, no senses. No limit.

from Mediterranean, tr. William Arrowsmith

Potessi almeno costringere
in questo mio ritmo stento
qualche poco del tuo vaneggiamento;
dato mi fosse accordare
alle tue voci il mio balbo parlare: -
io che sognava rapirti
le salmastre parole
in cui natura ed arte si confondono,
per gridar meglio la mia malinconia
di fanciullo invecchiato che non doveva pensare.
Ed invece non ho che le lettere fruste
dei dizionari, e l'oscura
voce che amore detta s'affioca,
si fa lamentosa letteratura.
Non ho che queste parole
che come donne pubblicate
s'offrono a chi le richiede;
non ho che queste frasi stancate
che potranno rubarmi anche domani
gli studenti canaglie in versi veri.
Ed il tuo rombo cresce, e si dilata
azzurra l'ombra nuova.
M'abbandonano a prova i miei pensieri.
Sensi non ho; né senso. Non ho limite.

There is a long tradition of poets bemoaning the fact that they cannot live up to the examples of their predecessors. Even Dante makes such declarations. I cannot help but think of Bloom's "anxiety of influence"... not so much in a Freudian aesthetic Oedipal sense... but more along the lines of the very real insecurity that any artist feels in comparison with his or her idols. I also cannot help but think of Eliot's seminal essay, The Tradition and the Individual Talent.

Montale has a stated goal of transcending (if not surpassing) the great Italian tradition which he feels has become flabby... mannered... effete. Yet confronting this great tradition... perhaps the entire Mediterranean tradition... he cannot help but feel a bit overmatched: Homer, Virgil, Dante, Petrarch, Leopardi. Against such figures he but stammers with a "clumsy music". Against the "sea-salt words... where nature fuses with art" he has but "moldy dictionary words"... against the very real spirituality... faith... the "mystery dictated by love..." (or perhaps even in contrast to the stoic atheism of Leopardi... or Lucretius) he has something grown faint... "literary".

Just throwing out some initial thoughts to get the ball rolling. I would be especially interested in JBI's and Petrarch's take on the original Italian... How does Montale's striving for a greater muscularity within a language that is so innately feminine... musical... fluidly poetic... read?

Virgil

10-17-2008, 11:43 PM

Jozy, that is the entire poem. StLukes has done the typing. ;)

I'm off to bed to read it. :)

JBI

10-18-2008, 12:05 AM

A quick read shows Almeno translated as only, though I think it would be more fitting, in terms of intention, to translate it as "at least", which seems to carry more of the connotation of "at best". Just a few minor pickings, I'd have to scan the poem with my dictionary to come up with other ones, but I thought they may be helpful for trying to understand the poem. The translation feels relatively loose, in comparison to the poem (though I confess, Arrowsmith's Italian is 100x better than mine) and seeks to establish itself as a "feel" translation, rather than a meaning translation. Also, the lines don't really follow each other, and seem to be re-ordered in translation to fit English grammar, and pragmatics better. Since, I guess, Montale has enjambed the first little bit significantly, Arrowsmith must have felt it necessary to play around with the order and feel of the words accordingly.

I leave it for tomorrow to make comparisons, though if you wouldn't mind, St. Lukes, could you perhaps post the same cutting from your second translation of the work, so as to compare?

As for the meaning, I think he is more talking about the naturalness, verses the cultivation. He seems to think his predecessors possessed a more natural, and less schooled command of what they were doing, their sea-salt fusion of nature and art, as he put it, whereas he is confined to the "academic" the old dictionaries, with their old clichés. His ending however, is rather difficult, since he seems to almost Whitmanize himself, in the sense that he abandons sense for the natural, a meaning which is instinctive rather than cultivated, not based on sense I.E. tradition, but on nature.

mortalterror

10-18-2008, 01:24 AM

If only I could force
some fragment of your ecstasy
into this clumsy music of mine;
had I the talent to match your voices
with my stammering speech-
-Montale's Mediterranean, tr. William Arrowsmith

Hecuba: If by some magic, some gift of the gods, I could become all speech- tongues in my arms, hands that talked, voices speaking, crying from my hair and feet - then, all together, as one voice, I would fall and touch your knees, crying, begging, imploring with a thousand tongues - O master, greatest light of Hellas, hear me, help an old woman, avenge her! She is nothing at all, but hear her, help her even so. Do your duty as a man of honor: see justice done. Punish this murder.- Euripides' Hecuba, tr. William Arrowsmith

If I had
A hundred tongues, a hundred mouths, a voice
Of iron, I could not tell of all the shapes
Their crimes had taken, or their punishments.
-lines 835-838, Book VI, Virgil's Aeneid, tr. Fitzgerald

For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,
To stir men's blood: I only speak right on;
I tell you that which you yourselves do know;
Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor poor dumb mouths,
And bid them speak for me: but were I Brutus,
And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony
Would ruffle up your spirits and put a tongue
In every wound of Caesar that should move
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.
-Julius Caesar Act 3 sc. II, Shakespeare

Dark Muse

10-18-2008, 01:47 AM

I cannot concentrate too much right now. But the verse is beautiful, I just love the use of langauge within the poem. It has some absolutely wonderful lines. And the word choice is subpurb. If I tried to quote specific lines I would probably end up reposting almost the entire poem.

JBI

10-18-2008, 10:35 AM

Hmm, I think I feel also, a little reverence for Leopardi in particular, especially around the parts with natural language, and natural feelings. That very much was the purpose of much of Leopardi's work, to create a natural poetics, one devoid of fancy nostalgic moments, and soft flowery language. I think perhaps Montale may be playing on that, to some extent, though perhaps he is alluding to Petrarch and Dante, the two obvious predecessors, amongst others. In truth though, I think, not from Virgil or Euripedes Montale got his stance, but from a strange reading of Song of Myself (I may be wrong, as I don't know at which time he read Leaves of Grass, though I know he read it, and was influenced it at some point in his life). I know he studied foreign languages as a youth, and it seems likely that he would have read Whitman, as many of his contemporary poets (Campana comes to mind first) were doing. I don't know - I'd need a biography to prove he read it, but under that assumption, I can feel Whitmanian tones running through the whole work.

Virgil

10-18-2008, 01:07 PM

I think one needs to read all nine of the Mediterranian poems as a whole. They are a cohesive group. I did not really find any individual poem all that spectacular, but as a grooup the do have a certain beauty. They are somewhat interconnected, but my real first impression is that they are along the lines of individual mosaics that make up a composite. They are almost a collection of pansies of a field of flowers, to use an allusion to Pascal.

The central theme of the group is the contrast between himself and the sea.

stlukesguild

10-18-2008, 04:19 PM

Virgil... I agree that there is the experiential aspect of the poet and the sea... the coast... the Mediterranean... The artist frustrated by his stuttering inability to compete with the experience of reality... nature? Still I also cannot help but sense the Mediterranean also stands for the tradition against which/within which the poet is working... seeking to develop his own language. I don't dispute JBI's sensing Whitman... but I am certain of his awareness and admiration of Eliot... who was himself deeply marked by Whitman. The notion of comparing ones self and the present with the past need not be limited to an artist/author's feeling of having been born too late, but also may convey a sense of a lost innocence... a lost naturalism... a lost spirituality (much of which is equally conveyed in Eliot's work).

Here is Gallassi's translation per JBI's request:

If at least I could force
some small part of your raving
into this halting rhythm;
if I could harmonize
my stammer with your voices-
I, who dreamed of stealing
your briny words
where art and nature fuse,
the better to shout out the sadness
of an aging boy who shouldn't have been thinking.
But all I have are threadbare
dictionary letters
and the dark voice love dictates
goes hoarse, becomes whining writing.
All I have are these words
which prostitute themselves
to anyone who asks;
only these tired out phrases
the student rabble can steal tomorrow
to make real poetry.
And your roaring rises,
the new shadow waxes blue.
My ideas desert me at the test.
I have no sense and no sense. No limit.

I personally prefer Arrowsmith's translation and I especially prefer the manner in which he deals with the phrase donne pubblicate... "published women"... a euphemism for prostitutes. Arrowsmith's translation as public women strikes me a closer to capturing the double meaning of the original.

Jozanny

10-18-2008, 09:14 PM

Just throwing out some initial thoughts to get the ball rolling. I would be especially interested in JBI's and Petrarch's take on the original Italian... How does Montale's striving for a greater muscularity within a language that is so innately feminine... musical... fluidly poetic... read?

With cudos to you and Bly luke, and quasi's nice pdf posting shows that Bly has been bemoaning emasculation long before I knew of his reputation, what do you mean by *greater muscularity?* Can you define your terms with more precision?

I am not ready to analyze Montale on the few samples of Arrowsmith I've read, not just yet. I'd like to focus and call my father and see if he will help me with Montale in Italian. That being said, there is no question Dante hits the pavement with a decent pair of stones, at least in terms of lacking humility. It has also been quite a while since I have paid Petrarca any homage, but I do not see much machismo in the Arrowsmith Xenia. I cannot pretend I have the authority to upend Bly, since I am a man-girl as opposed to a tamed husband-man, but I do not think vitality is the sole province of testosterone.

stlukesguild

10-18-2008, 10:23 PM

what do you mean by *greater muscularity?* Can you define your terms with more precision?

Coming on the heels of the art pour l'art era, a great deal of the art and poetry at the tail end of the 19th century and the early 20th century revels in the overly sweet... romantic... florid. In painting one might think of the Pre-Raphaelites. In poetry one might think of the worst excesses of Swinburne, Rossetti, Tennyson ... and their lesser followers. In Italy of the time of Montale's early efforts at poetry, the poetic world was seemingly dominated by French Symbolism and the almost mythical figure of Gabriele D'Annunzio. A great deal of the poetry of the era... as seen by Montale... was overly extravagant... florid... grandiloquent... or sweetly poetic. To this one might add the fact that Montale felt a degree of discomfort with what he imagined to be the very nature of the Italian language... with its excess of vowel-endings and the ease of rhyme (as opposed to the harder sounds of English and the comparative difficulty of rhyme). Again... like Eliot... Montale expressed a desire to break away from flowery language... the stereotypical sweet and elegant language of the "superior dilettantism" and the bric-a-brac wrapped in "a sumptuous négligé cloak"(as Montale phrased it): "I waned to wring the neck of the eloquence of our old aulic language, even at the risk of a counter-eloquence." The Arrowsmith translation suggests a sort of simplified... pared-down classicism... a limited use of florid adjectives/adverbs. Of course one would need a mastery of both Italian and of Italian literary history... especially a solid knowledge of the poets immediately prior to Montale... to offer a real solid analysis of how his poetry differs in terms of muscularity from the poetry prior.

Petrarch's Love

10-18-2008, 10:39 PM

Just had a spare moment to read the Bly, and the part of the poem as posted by St. Luke's. I may get more out of it when I have a chance to see the other parts, since I forgot once again to pick up the book at the library today (you can blame it on the discovery of an exquisite little 15th century Book of Hours in our Special collections holdings this afternoon).

As for the Montale, the sound of the original is remarkably eloquent. I don't know that I would quite describe his style as "muscular," not only because of the sinuous, vowel ladden qualities of the Italian language, but because there's such a smoothness to the sound of his verse. It certainly, however, has a backbone to it, and a certain sharp, incisive quality. There's no sense of overly supple flowery language here and a lot of control. Though, as with all translation, much of the music and some of the layered sense is inevitably lost, Arrowsmith's translation does a pretty darn good job I think of conveying a sense of the poem, though as JBI pointed out, possibly at a slight cost to exact meaning. There are certain words that simply aren't going to come out right in English: the "veri versi" of line 20 lose their alliteration in the "real poetry" of the translation; the masterly feeling of "salmastre" doesn't quite come through in the English "sea-salt"; as St. Luke's has pointed out, the double play in "pubblicate" forces a choice on the translator that guarantees a loss of meaning. Most notably, the English "ecstasy," much as I think it's the best word for the job and wonderfully effective in the English, doesn't entirely capture either the raving quality or the open, expansive, quality of "vaneggiamento." On the other hand, I like the way Arrowsmith preserves some of the effect of the syntactical order in places, which is often a problem in translation. For example, here:

...that voice of mystery
dictated by love grows faint,
turns literary, elegaic.

I like the preservation of the "turns literary, elegaic" in one line, mirroring the transforming enjambment of "si fa lamentosa letteratura" which puts an emphasis on the way his poetic voice becomes something other, less forceful, than what he envisioned. Not all translators pay that kind of close attention to that sort of nuanced effect. In other places, of course, he does change the syntax around, not always to the best effect, but I do like the way he fronts the "moldy dictionary words," giving them a position of more emphasis than in the original (while not a direct translation of "fruste" I think "moldy," especially as colloquially paired with dictionary, works well in English).

Just a few starting impressions. Based on this snippet I think I'm going to enjoy Montale. I'll comment a bit later about my reactions to the content of the poem.

JBI

10-18-2008, 10:45 PM

Petrarch, how do you translate the word "balbo"? I can't find it in my dictionary, and I am curious as to how it translates.

Bitterfly

10-18-2008, 10:51 PM

If he's trying to reject the previous tradition, why then does he say that he cannot compete with it? Is his tone ironical? I have trouble totally understanding your interpretation, but that's probably because I haven't seen what comes before.

I must admit I see the usual frustration of a poet struggling to express with words, the only tools he has at his disposition, something that seems to remain ineffable - nature, in its sublime state?

And the regret that he's intellectualised something which is physical, natural, I don't know, just because putting it in words means thinking about it? And maybe that thought dries everything up? That raw emotion, "ecstasy" (something outside itself) once that it has passed through the medium of a thinking mind, interiorised in a subjectivity, becomes almost trite? But the end of the poem allows him to go outside himself, outside of thought, so in consequence there are no limits left?

And also, maybe, the - rather modernist - feeling that everything has already been said, so he can only use the words that others have used before him, that have become hackneyed, and cannot create an individual voice.

And I'm intrigued by the "where nature fuses with art"- does he consider nature as a work of art in itself? Or does he mean that he is seeing the sea through the prism of other, previous representations?

Virgil

10-18-2008, 10:51 PM

I agree, "muscular" is not an adjective that would come to mind after having read all nine of the Mediterranian poems. I can't think of an adjective right now. Perhaps transcendental. I saw the Whitman comparison above, who was that JBI? I see where you're coming from, but if I'm going to associate him so far (truely unfair based on only this one poem but what the heck) with a Romantic I hear a sense of Shelley.

Jozanny

10-18-2008, 10:54 PM

Petrarch, how do you translate the word "balbo"? I can't find it in my dictionary, and I am curious as to how it translates.

I get "a kind of goatee" or "aircraft formation" for balbo, so I have to get hold of my father; he is still bilingual and I am obviously missing something.:(

Petrarch's Love

10-18-2008, 10:57 PM

Petrarch, how do you translate the word "balbo"? I can't find it in my dictionary, and I am curious as to how it translates.

It means stammering or babbling, just as he translates it. It's the (possibly colloquial...didn't find it in the dictionary) adjectival form of the verb balbettare. I think it's a wonderful word, with a lot of humor and clumsiness to it. It's a good example of the way Montale chooses diction in places with a clear mind toward not being too flowery, to ensuring a little jumpiness, or clumsiness to balance what otherwise could be a remarkably flawless style. "Balbo" comes bouncing along in a similar way that the uneven meter of the lines creates a certain intentional halting clumsiness.

stlukesguild

10-18-2008, 10:58 PM

I'm not going to venture any guess as to the meaning of "balbo"... but I will note that critical comments point out that Montale made frequent use of colloquialisms and local dialects... so a possibility?

Oops... missed Petrarch's posting by a few seconds.

stlukesguild

10-18-2008, 11:07 PM

If he's trying to reject the previous tradition, why then does he say that he cannot compete with it? Is his tone ironical? I have trouble totally understanding your interpretation, but that's probably because I haven't seen what comes before.

Like many artists I imagine Montale having something of a love-hate relationship with the work of his predecessors. I get the notion (from the critical comments I have read in both Arrowsmith's and Gallassi's books) that Montale wished to break free of the overly florid style of his immediate predecessors of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He looks to the examples of the greatest artists of the tradition (Dante, Petrarch, Leopardi, etc...) but struggles with how to make his poetry speak of his time... his experience.

And I'm intrigued by the "where nature fuses with art"- does he consider nature as a work of art in itself? Or does he mean that he is seeing the sea through the prism of other, previous representations?

I greatly suspect that it is both... that the poet struggles and stammers attempting to give form to what he has experienced in nature... but he feels a similar challenge presented by the work of his greatest predecessors who seemingly fused art and nature... spoke so "naturally"... as opposed to the modern self-conscious state?

Bitterfly

10-18-2008, 11:17 PM

I as opposed to the modern self-conscious state?

The rejection of self-consciousness and thought reminds me terribly of Lawrence, actually. And the "dark love" too, I suppose.

Jozanny

10-18-2008, 11:18 PM

I have found balbattare Petrarch, thank you, but I cannot find balbo either in my own library or on Google Italian-English. I will have to refer back to Montale at a later date, as I don't feel I can do his work any justice without some study. My Nonna stopped teaching me a long time ago, and she was more fluent than my father.

Virgil

10-18-2008, 11:42 PM

The more I'm reading this the more enamored I'm getting. I do really feel one must read all nine parts. I do not see the individual parts as single poems but one large poem of nine sections. I think it would do well to plot out the nine sections. There is a definite movement from first to ninth. Here's my quick attempt at a summary gist of the nine sections.

1. The hidden sea veiled but the sounds of the sea reaches his ears. And then the image of the streaking blue jays.

2. The poet is drunk with the voice of the sea as he absorbs the sea's voice within him. And then the image of the star fish corking up and down.

3. When the poet is not in rhythm with the “circling seasons” he finds the sea redeeming because it has been infused in his soul. And then the image of the plover (sea bird) plummeting for the shore.

4. The poet’s existence, his identity, and his destiny are all linked to the sea. He calls the sea “father.” No real crystal concluding image to this other than the surf speaking.

5. The poet pulls back and feels estranged from the sea. There is a emphasis of the contrast between the inanimate sea and living beings, including himself. There is bitterness, the bitterness a son feels for his father. Again no crystal concluding image.

6. Despite the distance of going away and of time, the voice of the sea, the memory of it, will always be seeded in the poet. Again no crystal concluding image.

7. His mortality contrasts with the elemental nature of the sea and its parts. The poet cannot be the ever constant, the ever “persistent will.” His human will needed to explore life. The concluding image here is somewhat abstract, the frenzy of the sea rising “to the stars.”

8. The poet wishes to take the sea’s voice and infuse it with his own. But he cannot. There is a contrast between the sublime reach of the sea’s voice with his limited human voice. . Again no crystal concluding image, and perhaps the most abstract, enigmatic conclusion of the nine parts.

9. The poet finds consummation with the sea. Whatever distance he has journeyed he returns, reenters its orbit. He commits himself to the sea and concludes with the image of a spark from a thyrsus (the staff of Dionysus) burning.

There is after all a narrative movement I believe. The poet is growing and time seems to move toward aging. I wonder if there is some numerology with the choosing of nine sections. I don’t think that’s accidental. And finally the meaning of the poem relies on the metaphor of the sea, and more specifically the Mediterranean sea. There are many internal momentary metaphors, but ultimately this poem rests on a grand complex metaphor of the sea’s significance.

Petrarch's Love

10-18-2008, 11:48 PM

It's funny that "balbo" doesn't seem to be surfacing in anyone's dictionary. It seemed quite familiar to me, which made me think it must be relatively common. It is quite close to the latin balbus, which makes me wonder if it's an older word, and might explain why I was familiar with it from reading older poetry. It might be interesting in light of the discussion regarding influence on this thread, if Montale was employing intentionally archaic language. On the other hand, it could just be a northern colloquial word. It's entirely possible I picked it up during my study abroad when the word could easily have been applied to my means of communicatin in Italian. :p

I'll take off my etymological cap and get some sleep now. Promise some comments more relevant to the pith and marrow of the poem tomorrow.

stlukesguild

10-19-2008, 12:15 AM

Virgil... I agree that the suite should be read as a whole. Of course I avoid posting it as such for a number of reasons... the foremost being that I'm not about to type the whole damn thing:lol:... although JoZ's, Petrarch's and others' current lack of the text also comes into play. Another reason is that my own thinking is somewhat blurred. Having just recently finished a major work that had involved some month or two and 60+ hours of intense labor I am in the stage of coming to terms with the fact that it is finished... with the self-conscious feelings of frustration and uncertainty that often follow in the wake of a completion of such a labor... and a struggle to begin a new work. Endless ideas are whirling through my head and I am confronted with the state of knowing that I must hone these down until I have chosen the single idea/image upon which I will apply my efforts over the next month or two.

Virgil

10-19-2008, 12:27 AM

Oh selecting one of the parts is justified. I do think that they stand individually, but I think the nine as a whole have more significance than any single part.

mortalterror

10-19-2008, 04:03 AM

I think perhaps Montale may be playing on that, to some extent, though perhaps he is alluding to Petrarch and Dante, the two obvious predecessors, amongst others. In truth though, I think, not from Virgil or Euripedes Montale got his stance, but from a strange reading of Song of Myself.

I'd hoped to let my quotations speak for themselves but now I see that I must further explain my ideas. I did not mean to imply that Montale was channeling Euripides, Virgil, and Shakespeare as influences or models. What I was trying to show was the similarity of their techniques. There are a few rhetorical devices which they have in common.

If only I could force
some fragment of your ecstasy
into this clumsy music of mine;
had I the talent to match your voices
with my stammering speech-

All of the examples I've listed begin with a statement of adynaton, that the subject they are about to treat is too great for them. They long for the eloquence of another, which suggests that the subject can be treated properly just not by them. I felt that this was different from apocarteresis, which is what religious poets like Dante or Firdawsi do when they say there are no words for what they are trying to express, that their subject is beyond the best poets and beyond poetry itself. What this adynaton does is twofold. It's first effect is that of eironeia, a greek word meaning feigned ignorance from which we derive the word irony. Those of you who've studied your Plato know that Socrates does this all the time. He sets up this "I'm just a simple country lawyer" faux humble persona for the purpose of persuading his audience who are now off their guard with lowered expectations. The poet at this point can only surpass the expectations of his listeners or if he does not he is still as good as his word. Secondly, the fact that Montale knows of other artists greater than himself, and correctly understands the magnitude of the subject he's about to treat flies in the face of the statements he's just made. Furthermore, any reference to a greater power than himself would automatically place him in relation to that object in a type of hierarchy which could only reflect well on Montale as we begin to think of them together. We know that he is attempting something which others have done before him, and so they have at least this much in common.

So what do we have so far? Montale has set up his persona at the beginning of his poem as a humble man with an admittedly minor poetic talent. He is about to try something very difficult and possibly above his abilities. If he should fail, as his numerous protestations attest, then he is still a virtuous man and his audience will sympathize with him because of his virtues and ambition. Montale has heightened the stakes of his discourse, while lowering expectations about his competence. When he succeeds, it's the underdog story, and we all cheer even louder.

Those of you who know Italian might be familiar with a little term called sprezzatura, which is the art of appearing artless. Wikipedia says it was first used by Castiglione, and defines it as "a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it." That is what Montale is striving for in this section of his poem. He purposely undercuts the smooth erudition of his lines by inserting local colloquialisms and affecting a plain style. The writing of a poem such as this is a very delicate, very difficult affair, but it's made to seem commonplace for Montale. "Oh, this? Just something I dashed off. You know I don't play those literary games. I haven't the talent." Montale knows this is the best part of his book, and so he's purposely prefacing it with light hearted condemnation.

Does anybody else feel the lament running through this poem: "If only I could" "all I have are"? It seems very sad, as if the speaker were mourning something.

Virgil

10-19-2008, 06:35 PM

Interesting how in the eith poem he actually picks up from the end of the previous. At the end of the seventh Montale has the sea in a state of high emotion: "And now your frenzy rises to the stars." And at the beginning of the eighth the poet wishes he could grab a piece of that frenzy: "If only I could force/some fragment of your ecstasy..." I don't think this pick up from the previous occurs in any of the other pieces. What stands out from the eighth part is how the poet belittles his voice: "stammering speech," "moldy dictionary words," "words...like public women," and cliches.

I found this very interesting:

and with your vast language proclaim the sadness
of an aging boy who shouldn't have learned to think.
I find it interesting because it connects with the second to last line: "My thoughts fail, they leave me."
I'm not sure I understand what Montale is after. First he says he shouldn't have learned to think and then in the face of the "booming" voice of the sea his thoughts fail. Actually in the Italian the connection is even more pronouced: "pensare" and "pensieri."

And that second to last line leads right into that most enigmatic concluding line, "I have no sense, no senses. No limit."

I have not been able to tease the meaning out of all that. Anyone?

Bitterfly

10-19-2008, 06:48 PM

They go together, in my opinion, because the poet feels he thinks too much to be able to write - or maybe even understand - the sea (that's why I said earlier on that he reminded me on DH Lawrence a little), which doesn't think but just is, maybe. At the end he stops thinking and therefore the limits disappear. It seems to cohere with what you said about the ninth song, where he fuses last with the sea - because his thoughts are not there to block him anymore.

And perhaps he loses both senses and sense because he is in the process of fusioning with the sea- he's dissolving into something larger than himself. The "booming" has overwhelmed him.

I'm very much convinced by your explanation by the way, mortalterror. I was wondering as well whether he wasn't exaggerating his mediocrity a little bit! :p It reminded me of a means of captatio benevolentiae - you tell your audience you're rotten so they'll sympathize with you. But I didn't know it was called adynaton.

stlukesguild

10-19-2008, 07:15 PM

Virgil... I don't ignore the fact that Montale speaks to the sea... the experiential is as valid and important as the symbolism that may lay beneath. I imagine that the Mediterranean is just that... that bit of the Mediterranean coast that Montale lived with for years as a child... that struck him with its starkness... its blaring sun... its jagged rocks and crashing waves... its intimations of the void and the infinite. At the same time I sense the Mediterranean is the Mediterranean tradition in which and against which he works to find a voice. "your vast language proclaim the sadness
of an aging boy who shouldn't have learned to think" may suggest the frustration of the educated, modern artist who senses that for all his sophistication he is but a stammerer in trying to come to terms with the "vast language" of nature... as well as the "vast language" of his great poetic predecessors. A great many modern artists in all genre turned to non-Western and "non-educated" sources (the arts of Africa, Asia, South America, the middle ages... the art of children, the mentally ill, or the self-taught artist) seeking what they imagined was a greater connection with nature... spirituality... all that made art real. How does a highly educated, sophisticated, urbane, agnostic artist come to terms with nature? Can he do anything but stammer in comparison with earlier poets for whom God and hell and nature were unquestionably real aspects of everyday life? Of course all his protestation is certainly ironic, as others have pointed out, as he clearly has some formidable poetic abilities.

Perhaps... as Virgil suggested... we should look at the other sections of the suite. Any parts that really strike you?

stlukesguild

10-19-2008, 07:23 PM

I might note that Montale speaks of all his poetry as "waiting for the miracle"... and that it has been pointed out that there is commonly a problematic striving in his work due to the fact that he lacks the atheistic certainty of a Lucretius or even a Leopardi... but he also lacks the religious belief of a Dante. In his agnosticism he straddles the line... "waiting for the miracle"... looking for the ineffable... for something that he can't put his finger on.

Virgil

10-19-2008, 07:29 PM

I'd hoped to let my quotations speak for themselves but now I see that I must further explain my ideas. I did not mean to imply that Montale was channeling Euripides, Virgil, and Shakespeare as influences or models. What I was trying to show was the similarity of their techniques. There are a few rhetorical devices which they have in common.

If only I could force
some fragment of your ecstasy
into this clumsy music of mine;
had I the talent to match your voices
with my stammering speech-

All of the examples I've listed begin with a statement of adynaton, that the subject they are about to treat is too great for them. They long for the eloquence of another, which suggests that the subject can be treated properly just not by them. I felt that this was different from apocarteresis, which is what religious poets like Dante or Firdawsi do when they say there are no words for what they are trying to express, that their subject is beyond the best poets and beyond poetry itself. What this adynaton does is twofold. It's first effect is that of eironeia, a greek word meaning feigned ignorance from which we derive the word irony. Those of you who've studied your Plato know that Socrates does this all the time. He sets up this "I'm just a simple country lawyer" faux humble persona for the purpose of persuading his audience who are now off their guard with lowered expectations. The poet at this point can only surpass the expectations of his listeners or if he does not he is still as good as his word. Secondly, the fact that Montale knows of other artists greater than himself, and correctly understands the magnitude of the subject he's about to treat flies in the face of the statements he's just made. Furthermore, any reference to a greater power than himself would automatically place him in relation to that object in a type of hierarchy which could only reflect well on Montale as we begin to think of them together. We know that he is attempting something which others have done before him, and so they have at least this much in common.

So what do we have so far? Montale has set up his persona at the beginning of his poem as a humble man with an admittedly minor poetic talent. He is about to try something very difficult and possibly above his abilities. If he should fail, as his numerous protestations attest, then he is still a virtuous man and his audience will sympathize with him because of his virtues and ambition. Montale has heightened the stakes of his discourse, while lowering expectations about his competence. When he succeeds, it's the underdog story, and we all cheer even louder.

Well, certainly he undercuts his abilities, and the effect you describe is true. I'm just not sure that that's what montale is after. Yes he undercuts his talent but I think it's in a relativeness to the sublime talent of the sea. I think to Montale it's any mortal could not have the talent of the sea. I think that's subtlly different than adynaton.

By the way, I'm awed by your knowledge of rhetoric. Where did you learn all those terms? :)

Those of you who know Italian might be familiar with a little term called sprezzatura, which is the art of appearing artless. Wikipedia says it was first used by Castiglione, and defines it as "a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it." That is what Montale is striving for in this section of his poem. He purposely undercuts the smooth erudition of his lines by inserting local colloquialisms and affecting a plain style. The writing of a poem such as this is a very delicate, very difficult affair, but it's made to seem commonplace for Montale. "Oh, this? Just something I dashed off. You know I don't play those literary games. I haven't the talent." Montale knows this is the best part of his book, and so he's purposely prefacing it with light hearted condemnation.
Sprezzatura is a perfect word to apply to Montale. This is my first time reading him. I'm quite impressed.

Does anybody else feel the lament running through this poem: "If only I could" "all I have are"? It seems very sad, as if the speaker were mourning something.
Yes, and I think a lamenting feeling runs throough all nine sections. But perhaps it is most poignant here.

They go together, in my opinion, because the poet feels he thinks too much to be able to write - or maybe even understand - the sea (that's why I said earlier on that he reminded me on DH Lawrence a little), which doesn't think but just is, maybe. At the end he stops thinking and therefore the limits disappear. It seems to cohere with what you said about the ninth song, where he fuses last with the sea - because his thoughts are not there to block him anymore.

I see what you're saying. Yes, the poet reaches his limitless state by disolving his thoughts away, and that allows him to fuse with the sea in the nineth part. Excellent!! You know I'm an ameteur semi-expert on DH Lawrence and I didn't see what you meant earlier. But now I see and I think you're right. I don't think Montale is thinking along with Lawrence, but they are similar in some fashion.

And perhaps he loses both senses and sense because he is in the process of fusioning with the sea- he's dissolving into something larger than himself. The "booming" has overwhelmed him.
Could be.

mortalterror

10-20-2008, 12:21 AM

By the way, I'm awed by your knowledge of rhetoric. Where did you learn all those terms?

Don't be too overawed. I spent about two and a half hours looking for the rhetorical terms that mean "false humility" and "feigned ignorance" and I wrote down all of the rhetorical terms which I thought applied as I went along. I don't know that stuff off the top of my head. In fact, I know there are more accurate terms which I just couldn't find. Eironeia is just as close as I could get before I gave up searching.

I read the first couple chapters of Aristotle's Rhetoric a few months back and I have a couple of rhetoric sites bookmarked which I combed for the devices I found. This (http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Silva.htm) is a good one, as is this one (http://www.nt.armstrong.edu/term1.htm) because it has excellent examples.

Bitterfly

10-20-2008, 06:58 AM

I don't think Montale is thinking along with Lawrence, but they are similar in some fashion.

No, I don't think he is thinking along with him either - that would be denying Montale his individual genius. I'm pleased you saw the similarity as well, though! Can you see why the "dark love" reminds me of Lawrence too, albeit in a fuzzier way? Something like the dark voice of the senses/sex, which here cannot be expressed while he is still in an intellectual relationship with it.

Could be.

The reason I interpreted it that way was because the sudden connection between senses and sense (thought) bothered me. At first I had the impression that senses were important for him. But then I wondered whether he just didn't want to do away with everything that made up his individual consciousness, and sensory perceptions are part of that (what you perceive also reflects who you are). Dissolution into the whole is also, by the way, a Lawrentian idea!

stlukesguild

10-20-2008, 10:03 PM

Perhaps it is time to begin going through the other parts of Mediterranean. It is very much intended as a whole... in spite of the fact that the sections may each stand on their own as independent poems. Montale mentioned that he was in part inspired by Debussy's La Mer... a musical cycle of (I believe) 3 parts.

A squall
of antic fleeting swoops
above my bent head.
The ground, crisscrossed
by twisted shadows of wild pines, scorches.
Far below, the sea is hidden
by trees, but more by the veil of haze
fitfully vented by the cracking soil.
Louder, then muffled, the sound of seething
breakers strangled
by a long line of shoals reaches my ears
...
I lift my gaze, suddenly the scolding stops; and down
to the boisterous waves streaks a flash
of blue-white arrows
two jays.

from Mediterranean section one
tr. William Arrowsmith

A vortice s’abbatte
sul mio capo reclinato
un suono d’agri lazzi.
Scotta la terra percorsa
da sghembe ombre di pinastri,
e al mare là in fondo fa velo
più che i rami, allo sguardo, l’afa che a tratti erompe
dal suolo che si avvena.
Quando più sordo o meno il ribollio dell’acque
che s’ingorgano
accanto a lunghe secche mi raggiunge:
o è un bombo talvolta ed un ripiovere
di schiume sulle rocce.
Come rialzo il viso, ecco cessare
i ragli sul mio capo; e via scoccare
verso le strepeanti acque,
frecciate biancazzurre, due ghiandaie.

Virgil

10-20-2008, 10:19 PM

Don't be too overawed. I spent about two and a half hours looking for the rhetorical terms that mean "false humility" and "feigned ignorance" and I wrote down all of the rhetorical terms which I thought applied as I went along. I don't know that stuff off the top of my head. In fact, I know there are more accurate terms which I just couldn't find. Eironeia is just as close as I could get before I gave up searching.

I read the first couple chapters of Aristotle's Rhetoric a few months back and I have a couple of rhetoric sites bookmarked which I combed for the devices I found. This (http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Silva.htm) is a good one, as is this one (http://www.nt.armstrong.edu/term1.htm) because it has excellent examples.
:lol: I know what you mean. I've done the same. I have several books on Rhetorical terms and while I enjoy perusing them the concepts never seem to stick in my head or at my fingertips.

No, I don't think he is thinking along with him either - that would be denying Montale his individual genius. I'm pleased you saw the similarity as well, though! Can you see why the "dark love" reminds me of Lawrence too, albeit in a fuzzier way? Something like the dark voice of the senses/sex, which here cannot be expressed while he is still in an intellectual relationship with it.
Where did you see "dark love" in Montale? I can't seem to find it?

The reason I interpreted it that way was because the sudden connection between senses and sense (thought) bothered me. At first I had the impression that senses were important for him. But then I wondered whether he just didn't want to do away with everything that made up his individual consciousness, and sensory perceptions are part of that (what you perceive also reflects who you are). Dissolution into the whole is also, by the way, a Lawrentian idea!
I think you're right. The loss of consciousness is required to absorb the natural elements. That does echo Lawrence. Though I think Lawrence at times wants to be absorbed into the natural elements in addition to absorbing them in.

Bitterfly

10-21-2008, 06:42 AM

Where did you see "dark love" in Montale? I can't seem to find it?
Oops, I don't have the text, so my memory sometimes plays tricks on me: it's actually the dark voice of love, and it's not in the Arrowhead translation but in the second one (suggested by - i think - stlukesguild).

I think you're right. The loss of consciousness is required to absorb the natural elements. That does echo Lawrence. Though I think Lawrence at times wants to be absorbed into the natural elements in addition to absorbing them in.

Well, I have the impression that the same goes for Montale - since he fuses with the sea in the last part of the poem.

Bitterfly

10-22-2008, 07:44 AM

Montale mentioned that he was in part inspired by Debussy's La Mer... a musical cycle of (I believe) 3 parts.

Ah, I love it when there are interferences between literature and music. Funny how Debussy seemed to inspire a few authors, no? Didn't his Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune inspire Mallarmé?

It's rather difficult to know what to say about the passage you suggested, apart the fact that's it's pretty animated (lots of movement, rather chaotic) and sensual (I mean by that that almost all the senses come into play), and that I wonder why the sea is first presented through sound and not sight, since it's doubly hidden, both by the tree and by the "veil of haze". Alas, I don't know what the word in Italian means, but "veil" also suggests a possible unveiling, therefore revelation.
I suppose that for us as well sound is more "important", because this is a poem, even it is pretty visual.

And the words used are violent: "twisted", "wild", "scorches", "fitfully", "cracking", "seething breakers strangled", "scolding". There's something of a hellish end of the world feeling - smoke coming out of the cracked earth, angry sounds, and darkness ("shadows").
He gets out into the light at the end though, with the "flash" and "blue-white" - but the "arrows" are still a threatening image.
What part does it come from?

stlukesguild

10-22-2008, 09:33 PM

This is from the first poem of the suite. I agree that it is wonderfully aural. I especially like "scolding" in the final few lines... where the sea suddenly ceases its noise (or so its seems in his mind?) as there streaks two blue-white arrows... the blue jays. It suggests that all the perception of the sea in terms of sound... crashing waves, etc... is suddenly interrupted by the unexpected visual experience.

Bitterfly

10-22-2008, 10:54 PM

Virgil

10-22-2008, 11:00 PM

Oh, of course, you're right. I wonder why his head is bent at the beginning... a penitent's position? Prayer? Why does he finally look up? If it's the first poem, it's a pretty dramatic beginning... I can visualise it quite well - he lets the sounds wash over him first, before gazing at the sea and allowing us a glimpse at it, after all that sound.
And why jays? They're not exactly sea-birds, are they.

Ah, it's a little annoying not to be able to study the words... I'd like to know why he chose "squall" for the first line, but of course it's not the same word in Italian! :bawling:

It's the most dramatic of the series of poems. There seems to be a trend toward more and more transcendental as one continues through the poems. This one is very physical.

I don't understand the jays either. I think the fact that its birds is significant and I think follows the tradition of bird symbolism in literature. Perhaps this is an American understanding of blue jays, but they are not sea birds, at least not here. I don't know if by the Mediterranian there are different jays. And why are there two jays? Another observation, there are plovers in the third poem and those are most defiitely sea birds.

Bitterfly

10-22-2008, 11:13 PM

Bird symbolism in literature? I thought about that too, but wasn't quite sure what to compare them to apart from the dove of Noah's ark (the end of the flood, a sort of rebirth I suppose)... and my brain is too sluggish just right now to come up with others!! But I guess birds are often symbolically messengers of some sort, and bridges between two realms - air and land - maybe even water - so maybe between material and transcendental?

I went to look up jays and they're apparently talkative birds (don't you think it's wild what studying literature can teach you sometimes? i find out the oddest bits of information! :p ). Didn't see anything else that could be interesting, but I don't have a dictionary of symbols and besides maybe Montale wasn't that much into symbolism.

The birds seem really ambivalent to me as well: at the beginning they're swooping about his head, at the end they're arrows.. 'Tis strange, hum.

What do you think about "squall"? as it's of "antic fleeting swoops", he's mixing birds and water in a way - depends whether you understand squall as a cry or as rush of water or wind... interesting word.

Virgil

10-22-2008, 11:25 PM

JBI

10-22-2008, 11:35 PM

Birds usually in literature from what I understand represent a poet, or poetic force. Perhaps that is what Montale is playing on?

Bitterfly

10-22-2008, 11:38 PM

I think if you look at the Italian it's definitely meant as water. But there is a parallel between the squall of water and the birds.

Yep, it works better in Italian, just checked and it means whirlpool (should have known - vortex - a connection with vorticism? :p ) - so jays and sea come together from the start. By the way, I don't know if "s'abatte" is like the French "s'abattre", but it's more violent than just "swoops" - once again they're viewed as a bit of a threat, I have the impression.

I wonder like you why they're a couple...

Thanks for the list of birds, and have thought of two more: Baudelaire's albatros (a metaphor for the poet) and Saint John Perse.

I like Montale more and more!!!!

Birds usually in literature from what I understand represent a poet, or poetic force. Perhaps that is what Montale is playing on?

Ah yes!

stlukesguild

10-23-2008, 12:29 AM

There is always the possibility that what Montale is relating is something he actually experienced... in which the question of why blue jays may simply be no unlike that which the poet felt upon the sudden shock... the sudden break in his focus upon the raging sounds of the sea as these two jays streak by. I also wonder whether the choice was coloristic... the white and the blue repeating the azure of the sea and the white of the sky. Again... just throwing out possibilities.

stlukesguild

10-23-2008, 12:36 AM

Looking at the notes Arrowsmith suggests that the poet's reverie... his concentration upon the sounds of the sea is broken from the start:

A squall
of antic fleering swoops
above my bent head...

I notice that I mis-copied the word fleering (or taunting) as fleeting. As I reread it it becomes a scene in which the poet's reveries... his meditations upon the sounds of the sea are broken by taunting sounds above his bent head. As the "scolding" ceases he looks up to see the jays streaking through the sky.

stlukesguild

10-26-2008, 11:40 AM

Time to explore another from Mediterranean:

“Noi non sappiamo quale sortiremo
domani, oscuro o lieto;
forse il nostro cammino
a non tócche radure ci addurrà
dove mormori eterna l’acqua di giovinezza;
o sarà forse un discendere
fino al vallo estremo,
nel buio, perso il ricordo del mattino.
Ancora terre straniere
forse ci accoglieranno: smarriremo
la memoria del sole, dalla mente ci cadrà il tintinnare delle rime.
Oh la favola onde s’esprime
la nostra vita, repente
si cangerà nella cupa storia che non si racconta!
Pur di una cosa ci affidi,
padre, e questa è: che un poco del tuo dono
sia passato per sempre nelle sillabe
che rechiamo con noi, api ronzanti.
Lontani andremo e serberemo un’eco
della tua voce, come si ricorda
del sole l’erba grigia
nelle corti scurite tra le case.
E un giorno queste parole senza rumore
che teco educammo nutrite
di stanchezze e di silenzi,
parranno ad un fraterno cuore
sapide di sale greco”

What tomorrow will bring, joyful
or somber, no one knows.
Our roads may take us
to clearings untrodden by human foot,
to whispering steams of eternal youth;
or perhaps a last descent
into that final valley,
all darkness, memory of light quite lost.
Foreign lands, perhaps
will welcome us once more; we will lose
the memory of our sun, our lilting rhymes
will be forgotten.
And the fable
that expresses our lives will suddenly become
that grim tale no man will ever tell.
Still, O father, one legacy
you leave us: some small part of your genius
lives on in these syllables we bear with us,
humming bees.
However far our journey, we will always keep
an echo of your voice, like the brown grass
in dark courtyards between the houses,
which never forgets the light.
And a day will come when those unvoiced words,
seeded in us by you, nourished
on silence and fatigue,
will, to some brotherly soul, seem seasoned
with salt-sea brine.

from Mediterranean
Cuttle Fish Bones
Eugenio Montale
tr. William Arrowsmith

Dark Muse

10-26-2008, 02:37 PM

I know I have not been around lately but I have been caught up in other things, and caught behind in the dicussion, but seeing a new poem posted, I thought I would try to get back into things again.

The poem is truly beautiful and makes use of such wonderful langauge. It has a very dream like quality to it.

What tomorrow will bring, joyful
or somber, no one knows.
Our roads may take us
to clearings untrodden by human foot,
to whispering steams of eternal youth;
or perhaps a last descent
into that final valley,

I just love this passage. I find it to be very striking.

This while poem seems to be about the journey of man through his life, and the desire that everyone has to be remmemberd "immortalized" in some after they have gone. For something of them to still remain.

you leave us: some small part of your genius
lives on in these syllables we bear with us,
humming bees.

These lines in particular struck me. Espcially the part about the humming bees.

However far our journey, we will always keep
an echo of your voice, like the brown grass
in dark courtyards between the houses,
which never forgets the light.

This is another set of lovely images. The annlogy of the brown grass is truly quite wonderful.

The poem is just so very visual, you can really feel it, as if you could reach out and grab hold of it.

quasimodo1

10-26-2008, 06:12 PM

This is not on topic, Stlukes...but Italian vocabulary is way more impressive than I imagined. My provincial attitude wouldn't you know. Also, according to my translating tool...some of Montale's words just don't have a direct equivelant.

mazHur

10-26-2008, 06:54 PM

~ It's Rigged ~

It's rigged---everything in your favor.
So there is nothing to worry about.

Is there some position you want,
some office, some acclaim, some award, some con, some lover,
maybe two, maybe three, maybe four---all at once,

.maybe a relationship
with
God?

I know there is a gold mine in you, when you find it
the wonderment of the earth's gifts you will lay
aside as naturally as does
a child a
doll.

But, dear, how sweet you look to me kissing the unreal;
comfort, fulfill yourself in any way possible---do that until
you ache, until you ache,

then come to me
again. ...

by Jelaluddin Rumi
From Love Poems From God ,
translated by Daniel Ladinsky

mazHur

10-26-2008, 06:58 PM

sorry, i was not knowing the rules of this thread...however, how about including Rumi as well??

quasimodo1

10-26-2008, 07:17 PM

Arrowsmith in inimitable fashion, somehow inserts into his translation a sense of the romantic atmosphere and liquid sound of Montale's Italian. Montale supplies the honesty and sincerity without a bit of the maudlin and without any trace of being jaded...even in the sense of death as ultimate empty abyss following life except for a noble, poetic sentiment which will endure...."Still, O father, one legacy you leave us: some small part of your genious/ lives on in these syllables we bear with us/ humming bees."

stlukesguild

10-26-2008, 10:06 PM

sorry, i was not knowing the rules of this thread...however, how about including Rumi as well??

Yes... Rumi is certainly worth discussing. The Poetry Bookclub Thread, however, is focused upon the in-depth discussion of a single poet and/or book of poetry voted upon by the group as a whole. I would be more than interested in discussing Rumi if you were to post him in an original thread... or even if you placed him within the thread entitled Exempli Gratia: Classic Poetry where we post and discuss "classic" poems and poets.

stlukesguild

10-26-2008, 10:14 PM

Still, O father, one legacy
you leave us: some small part of your genius
lives on in these syllables we bear with us,
humming bees.

Again I am struck with the sense that the poet is speaking at once to the Mediterranean as a body of water... a landscape that has made a deep impression upon him ( "However far our journey, we will always keep
an echo of your voice..." ) but also symbolic. I imagine the Mediterranean... and all that entails to the poet (Homer, Virgil, Dante, Petrarch, Leopardi...) as also a father to the poet whose legacy is perhaps but just "some small part" of the whole of Mediterranean genius... like the humming of that sole single bee among the humming of the whole nest. Perhaps a Romantic... even fanciful interpretation on my part... but I greatly sense that Montale never limits his poems to a single simple "meaning".

stlukesguild

10-26-2008, 10:16 PM

This is not on topic, Stlukes...but Italian vocabulary is way more impressive than I imagined. My provincial attitude wouldn't you know.

So Dante WAS on to something...?:D

quasimodo1

10-28-2008, 01:11 AM

Unfortunately, Collected Poems 1920-1954, revised, bilingual edition, is translated and annotated by Jonathan Galassi.....I sincerely hope this translator will not detract from my appreciation re: Arrowsmith's superior work....At least it is all inclusive.

stlukesguild

10-28-2008, 08:23 PM

Galassi's translations are also quite well respected. He may actually capture certain aspects of Montale's work that Arrowsmith doesn't. I simply prefer Arrowsmith... not least of all because he was the translator in whom I first encountered Montale.

quasimodo1

10-30-2008, 07:47 PM

The following statement on "Reading Montale" by Jonathan Galassi:

Excerpt from READING MONTALE

...What do Italian readers hear in Montale? I'm going to offer a response,

informed by my reading in his critics, though of course no one not born
into a language can truly know how poetry sounds to those for whom it was written.
First, I believe they hear a nervous, astringent music, one that asserts its individuality
in sharp contradistinction to the prevailing norms of its era. Instead of orotund
mellifluousness they encounter harshness and abruptness, enclosed in predominantly
short forms tending to the paratactic, which are often in themselves self-conscious
ironic reprises of traditional stanzas. They encounter a large, often arcane vocabulary which, in its restless search for expressive authenticity, employs rare words from sources ranging from the highly artificial and archaic to local dialect, frequently deployed in surprising conjunctions calculated to
"strike sparks." They find, as a rule, compressed expression and thematic reiteration
to the point of obsession, along with prodigious inventiveness in handling the inevitable,
even oppressive riches of Italian rhyme, and great variation in the use of the Italian
version if iambic pentameter-- the hendecasyllable-- which Montale alternates freely
with SETTENARI, OTTONARI, and NOVENARI, or seven-, eight-, and nine-syllable lines,
in his search for constant rhythmic variety, occasionally resorting to longer forms as he
experiments with his own kind of Hopkinesque "sprung rhythm." In sum, Italian readers of
Montale experience a restless will to reinvent, to renew the time-honored materials
of their poetry by submitting them to arduous contemporary challenges.

quasimodo1

10-30-2008, 10:46 PM

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=lang_en&id=fHZjvOGO1MIC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Jonathan+Galassi&ots=KFK7JGbggM&sig=-fAkt373b-3_lmcN-pobbGkMsng#PPR9,M1

quasimodo1

11-01-2008, 10:08 PM

While waiting for my Arrowsmith translation, Galassi's became available. When I went to pick up the Arrowsmith...the good people at B&N handed me Antonino Mazza.

Eugenio Montale

From The Bones of Cuttlefish
(translated by Antonino Mazza)

ALMOST A FANTASY

Day reappears, I present it
As a dawn of threadbare
Silver on the walls:
The shut windows stripe a glimmer.
The event of the sun
Returns and the diffused
Voices do not bring the customary uproars.

Why? I think of a day of enchantment
And with merry-go-rounds of hours too self-repeating
I reward myself. The power which once excited me
Will overflow, inanimate wizard,
From the great old days. Now I will lean out,
I will do away with tall houses, bare avenues. {excerpt}

quasimodo1

11-01-2008, 10:09 PM

Eugenio Montale

From Collected Poems 1920-1954
(translated by Jonathan Galassi)

From Cuttlefish Bones 1920-1927

LIKE A FANTASIA

Day is dawning, I can tell
By the old-silver shimmer
On the walls:
A gleam edges the shut windows.
The coming of the sun returns again,
Without the scattered voices
And old noises.

Why? I fantasize a magic day
To counteract the hours game
Of sameness. The power pent up
In this unconscious magus for so long
Will overflow. Now I'll show myself
And subjugate high houses, empty avenues.
{excerpt}

Jozanny

11-01-2008, 11:05 PM

I haven't been able to get to the library, and so regret that I haven't been able to really focus on Montale and come up with a decent evaluation worthy of my maturity, but of the few samples I've gleaned through the efforts of the club participants, I respond better to Montale than to Roethke.

I do not see the muscularity that luke responds to; for me it is closer to an avuncular, jovial irony, which is at most a preliminary empathy. I cannot parse for specific elements--but 20th century European poets are simply superior to their American counterparts. Roethke too consciously constrains himself in his couplets; it is irritating, as he is really not the master of the formalism wherein his mania is always threatening to burst. Montale is rather more comfortable in his own skin, and with the irony of playing with the past, yet being, ultimately, a modern man, quiet in a muted strength. How I get all that I don't know, given how little I invested back in really studying anything, but I responded to Xenia. There was a husband in whom my scars might have softened, in terms of the character he presented.

Juat as an aside, I am going to stay out of nominating unless I am sure I can get my hands on the collection, and really offer a decent conversation. I am weary of the chip on the shoulder arguments about the value of literature which ripple in the forums with tidal consistency, and I am intent from now on in focusing on authors, their texts, and appropriate comparison.

Thank you luke for your efforts in assisting me with some access to CB.

quasimodo1

11-01-2008, 11:23 PM

Virgil

11-03-2008, 08:48 PM

In the Galassi trans. 4th line, second stanza...he uses the key words "unconscious magus" which compares grossly with "inanimate wizard" of Mazza. The Italian is "incosciente mago". I'd love to know how Arrowsmith translates this expression.

Arrowsmith translates the first two stanzas this way:

ALMOST A FANTASIA

Daylight again, I sense it
in the dawning of old
silver on the walls:
a glimmer edges the shut windows.
The sun comes back
again, but brings
no diffused voices, no customary din.

Why? I think of a day of enchantment,
my reward for the pageant of hours
too much alike. In me the power
welling, unconscious wizard,
will overflow. Yes, I'll be standing at the window,
I'll overwhelm tall houses, treeless streets.
[SNIP]

Very interesting poem. I can't say I really understand it.

quasimodo1

11-03-2008, 09:04 PM

Nor I, yet, Virgil. Can you say you understand any parts of it...perhaps. Does "divide and conquer" work in this matrix?

Virgil

11-03-2008, 09:13 PM

Nor I, yet, Virgil. Can you say you understand any parts of it...perhaps. Does "divide and conquer" work in this matrix?

Let me think over it for a while. It kind of makes sense in pieces, but let me see if I can put something coherent together.

stlukesguild

11-03-2008, 10:58 PM

In the appendix/notes from Cuttlefish Bones there is a commentary by Glaucon Cambon, author of Eugenio Montale's Poetry: A dream in Reason's Presence:

"The clearly affirmative note of I limoni can rise to nearly triumphant pitch in Almost a Fantasia, where the poetic self envisions a forthcoming spell of its own making that will efface the deadness of daily routine to create a snow-lit fairyland and summon up remembrance of all things past- like recovered childhood."

This poem strikes me as similar, in some way... difficult to put the finger on... to the crystalline poetry of Rilke. I am especially struck by the lines:

Before me will be a land of virgin snow,
but powdered, as in a tapestry.
From a fleecy sky a slow radiance will slide.
Flooded with invisible light, forests and hills
will sing in praise of joyous returnings.

Elated, I'll read the black
signs of branches on the white,
like an alphabet of being.
In an instant, and the whole past
will open out before me...

"Triumphant" is an understatement. This poem creates such images that are almost ecstatic. Thinking of the title and Montale's initial education and love of music I imagine this poem as conveying something of a true fantasia... a symphony or visual images. The lines "I'll read the black/signs of branches on the white/like an alphabet of being..." clearly refers literally to the effect of the black branches silhouetted like so many written symbols... the calligrapher's ink... against the white parchment of the snow. I can't help but immediately think of Breughel's famous painting, Hunter's in the Snow:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3194/2954354823_f46a757c04.jpg?v=0

stlukesguild

11-03-2008, 11:09 PM

I think Cambon has really put his finger on it. Montale starts out with a description of day returning once more: the usual silver on the wall and the old glimmer around the edges of the shut windows. But this day is different. Why? He notices the lack of the usual noises and muffled sounds that accompany the start of day. I wonder if it is not the snowfall itself that has transformed this day into something "magical". Surely, we all have experienced the almost silent world of morning the snow has fallen and muffles the usual sounds. How common is such an experience in the Italy where Montale lived? Might it not be imagined as something even more magical...? Might it not trigger memories of the past... a childhood experience of the snow? But Montale transforms this experience into something even more poetic/ecstatic. He answers the question of "Why?" himself:

Why? I think of a day of enchantment,
my reward for the pageant of hours
too much alike. In me the power
welling, unconscious wizard,
will overflow. Yes, I'll be standing at the window,
I'll overwhelm tall houses, treeless streets.

stlukesguild

11-03-2008, 11:22 PM

By the way... the original:

Quasi una fantasia

Raggiorna, lo presento
da un albore di frusto
argento alle pareti:
lista un barlume le finestre chiuse.
Torna l'avvenimento
del sole e le diffuse
voci, i consueti strepiti non porta.

Perchè? Penso ad un giorno di incantesimo
e delle giostre d' ore troppo uguali
mi riparo. Traboccherà la forza
che mi turgeva, incosciente mago,
da grande tempo. Ora m'affaccerò,
subisserò alte case, spogli viali.

Avrò di contro un paese di intatte nevi
ma lievi come viste in un arazzo.
Scivolerà dal cielo bioccoso un tardo raggio.
Gremite d'invisibile luce selve e colline
mi daranno l'elogio degl'ilari ritorni.

Lieto leggerò i neri
segni dei rami sul bianco
come un essenziale alfabeto.
Tutto il passato in un punto
dinanzi mi sarà comparso.
Non turberà suono alcuno
questa allegrezza solitaria.
Filerà nell'aria
o scenderà s'un paletto
qualche galletto di marzo.

JBI

11-04-2008, 12:16 AM

the poem seems to be ambiguous in the extreme, so no accurate reading I think that can safely be done with any certainty, still I will attempt an interpretation of sorts here.

In the first paragraph the poet seems to be anticipating a return of a moment of pure clarity. This begins with him anticipating the 'return of the sun', shining on the 'old silver on the walls:'. But the problem is, what is this daylight bringing. We know that it is encroaching the illusion of the room, and beginning to spill in through the windows, but what does it symbolize? the last line is quite puzzling at this point, a return 'no diffused voices', implying a moment of clarity, without the 'customary din', seeming to echo the concept of line shining the truth on the moment/the life of the speaker.

In the second paragraph the speaker expands, 'Why?' he asks, as if asking what this means, to which he answers, the 'day of enchantment' is his 'reward for the pageant of hours / too much alike.' He then goes on to explain in further depth, that the sleeping power of his 'unconscious wizard', which has been 'welling' inside him will now 'ooverflow'. The light now shines on him and he proclaims "I'll overhwhelm tall houses, treeless streets." imply that something great is in store, in what is symbolized by the returning day.

The next paragraph takes a turn, explaining what awaits for him: a 'land of virgin snow," which "powdered, as in a tapestry." implying that it is free for him to leave a definite mark - the powdered snow being impressionable to the footprint, and being clear of the previous marks of others - and therefore ready for the taking/impressing, the Snow being transformed into a sort of canvas for his own designs.

The last paragraph takes another drastic turn; the speaker says his purpose and desire now - to, from his elated level, 'read the black / signs of branches on the white, like an alphabet of being.' The white here referring to the snow, being marred by time and nature, fallen branches symbolizing the growth and destruction of the tree in winter, in the time when the sun was down, and he was symbolically sleeping. He wishes to use these branches to view 'the whole past', for he believes they 'will open out before' him. They will say what has occurred while he hid behind his window, and the snow was down.

The last few lines through another curve ball. What is so significant about reading the branches? Well, if 'no sound will jar' his 'solitary joy' than it can be assumed that this act is bringing him clarity and understanding - a oneness with himself. The final lines take it into another direction all together - the 'hoopoe... come / to usher in the spring.' must symbolize the end of the winter, after the light has risen, and the spring, bringing rebirth, and the end of winter - and with it the end of his need for clarity.

The problem therefore, in the poem, I would think, is in interpreting the symbolism behind the branches on the snow, and what the speaker desires to get or understand from them. He mentions the whole past opening up before him, but what does he mean by that? It must be assumed then, that he is implying the tree branches are somewhat of the observer of time - the natural, and therefore eternal world, and therefore he can gain clarity about himself, and about time, before spring will come, and bring about a wanted fundamental change in him.

JBI

11-04-2008, 12:28 AM

I think it would be unfair also to view this poem as just a collection of happy images, or of a Wordsworthian moment as seen in Wordsworth's prelude and Tintern Abbey. Montale is a very different poet, who builds more with metaphor and synechdoches, and likes to load his poems with symbolic depth, at this time probably influenced strongly by the symbolists, who were just finishing up. I think it is more sensible then, to consider the elements as a contrast - the night is cloaking the tree branches, and therefore not letting him enjoy the view of the past, and the future, and also the lack of understanding in the past is obscuring the future, and making it unwanted.

We must then consider the context - this was written a little after the first world war (my edition doesn't have an exact date, but the whole collection was from 1925, so we can assume somewhere after the war, and to this date) and the world was in a rather uncertain point.

It can be assumed then, that this poem pushes time from two fronts - the darkness before the sun returns, and the spring after the clarity occurs. Winter is a transitional period, awaiting the new growth, after sense and order can be divulged from the branches, from the past.

quasimodo1

11-04-2008, 12:45 AM

Stlukes and JBI: Your analysis of this poem, i.e. both of you, is grounded as can be in academic terms. My question (which uncomfortably co-incides with a pet theory) arises from the expression "incosciente mago" and is this a key to the ultimate meaning? (= fantasy). My sense of the poem, albeit problematic because of the translation factor, is that this expression ...if it may mean Montale's unconscious prophet (or wizard if you must) ....turns the piece into a desire for the quiet period between to warring periods (as JBI mentions with regards to the poems historical place). Also, if true, this fantasy becomes an irony, being that the writer has as high desire for something most consider normal.

JBI

11-04-2008, 01:09 AM

I took the 'unconscious wizard' to be in apposition to 'the power welling', thereby acts as him comparing the power welling inside him to an unconscious wizard, a sleeper ready to awake and throw fire. The term isn't significant, in my reading, I think it is just the speaker being metaphorical.

quasimodo1

11-04-2008, 02:04 AM

Your interpretation is more likely but mine gives Montale more credit for a wider view. I'll go with yours.

JBI

11-04-2008, 10:48 AM

Your interpretation is more likely but mine gives Montale more credit for a wider view. I'll go with yours.

Don't; the poem is ambiguous, it can mean anything. I'm just making educated guesses; the poem could mean many other things..

quasimodo1

11-04-2008, 11:38 AM

I'll look out on a land of untouched snows
But insubstantial, as if seen on a screen.
A slow ray will slide down from the cottony sky.
Woods and hills alive with invisible light
Will praise me for their joyful reoccurrence.
{Galassi's third stanza}

.................................................. .................................................. .................

Avro' di contro un paese d'intatte nevi
Ma lievi come viste in un arazzo.
Scivolera' dal cielo bioccoso un tardo raggio.
Gremite d'invisibile luce selve e colline
Mi diranno l'elogio degl'ilari ritorni.
{Montale's original Italian} This third stanza seems to me, unconnected to the others and in my almost non-existant knowledge of Italian...just evaluating some expressions word by translated word (and of course I'm using the Galassi translation) ... the most seems lost in translation. "A slow ray will slide down from the cottony sky." stands out from the text in several ways....the "slow ray" being light that defies the laws of physics and "from the cottony sky" is a more romantic (dramatic as well) expression then perhaps you find in the rest of the poem. The image produced is surreal and getting back to your historical placement...the line has a post-war feel, or post great -event feel to it. Again I see the whole poem going in a direction that is anything but fantasy.

stlukesguild

11-04-2008, 09:52 PM

I think it would be unfair also to view this poem as just a collection of happy images, or of a Wordsworthian moment as seen in Wordsworth's Prelude and Tintern Abbey... probably influenced strongly by the symbolists, who were just finishing up.

I agree that it would be off to limit this poem to such a view. The fact that he presents the scene in anticipation of the event rather than in response to an actual "Wordsworthian" moment is quite different. Montale admits to having been deeply inspired by the Symbolists as well as Rilke. I certainly see much of that in this work. The images add up, to my reading, as something not unlike the work of many Symbolist poems... I'm thinking especially of Rimbaud's Illuminations... but also the more crystalline Modernist sound of Rilke.

quasimodo1

11-05-2008, 01:10 PM

Stlukes has made a most cogent remark and in response let me admit after the denial...that I'm grasping on this one.

quasimodo1

11-06-2008, 02:46 PM

Listen to me, the poets laureate
walk only among plants
with rare names: boxwood, privet and acanthus.
But I like roads that lead to grassy
ditches where boys
scoop up a few starved
eels out of half-dry puddles:
paths that run along the banks,
come down among the tufted canes
and end in orchards, among the lemon trees.
{first stanza of "The Lemons" translated by Galassi}

Virgil

11-06-2008, 09:33 PM

Arrowsmith translates the first two stanzas this way:

ALMOST A FANTASIA

Daylight again, I sense it
in the dawning of old
silver on the walls:
a glimmer edges the shut windows.
The sun comes back
again, but brings
no diffused voices, no customary din.

Why? I think of a day of enchantment,
my reward for the pageant of hours
too much alike. In me the power
welling, unconscious wizard,
will overflow. Yes, I'll be standing at the window,
I'll overwhelm tall houses, treeless streets.
[SNIP]

There are two keys I think to this poem. First this: "In me the power/welling, unconscious wizard,/will overflow." It echoes Wordworth's "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" the philosophic heart of Ramanticism. Second, is the shift in tense right after that sentence I just quoted. Before the sentence, Montale is in present tense and describing the scene deligently, especially highlighting the sun and daylight and the enchantment of day time as "pageant". After the sentence of the "power welling" Montale shifts into future tense, which is a conditional or imaginative situation. The imagination has taken over and induces all sorts of imaginative situations, of which i can't quite connect except to say they magnify the narrator's ego and inflate his feelings of power. I don't exactly know what Montale suggests by the various images or symbols, but I do see this poem coming from the Romantic tradition.

Jozanny

11-08-2008, 03:59 AM

Although I am disrupting the remaining discussion, I am posting just to let the club members know I am stopping with the club for the time being. I am not very good at absorbing poets or experiencing them through posts. I did manage to get some sense of Roethke, but this process is too inchoate for me, as a poet myself.

I need time with poets and their work, not only to read it, but to hear it, age with it, as I have done with Dr. Creeley, and thus appreciate his experiments with compression.

Should I be a member on the forum long enough, I will return if or when a poet is nominated whom I feel confident about in offering analysis--and whose selection is, perhaps, less rushed in the making.

Virgil

11-08-2008, 10:55 AM

Jozanny

11-08-2008, 01:54 PM

I completely understand. If I didn't have the book, I couldn't do it either.

It is more than having or not having a text Virgil, but I hope the book club continues and manages itself a little better, perhaps. I suppose it is a matter of coordination.

quasimodo1

11-10-2008, 03:08 AM

To Joz: If it seems like I'm winging-it, i.e. the poetry bookclub, it's becasue I am. Always open to organizational suggestions. But you know that. In these days of poetry not just being in the cultural closet...but being in the back of that cluttered closet...well. any discussion is a plus. If the quality of that discussion can be improved in any way...please inform me. As for Montale, I think we'll finish up on "The Lemons" and start a new poet. I was hoping in my inimitably prejudiced way for Bishop.

Jozanny

11-10-2008, 03:28 AM

quasi dear, no biggie if you are winging it; I in fact appreciate the exposure you've given me.

I cannot *wing it* tho, if I do not wish to come off like a posting imbecile. I don't have my doctorate like Petrarch, true, but I consider myself an accomplished author, if not an entirely successful one--and reading poetry worth reading is an investment I need the time to make--more for some poets than others, and Montale is the "more" here. Bishop would be the same, as her critical reputation is on the rise--and in this I do not merely parrot TNR, as she has been in the eddy of upward attention for a few years now.

I withdraw until I can find the time to focus, research, and *say* something choice. I can get away with bandying fiction round and about, but I cannot reduce good poetry to sound bite summaries.

I will message you later. Busy this week.

quasimodo1

11-10-2008, 03:53 AM

OK THEN, your qualifications are noted. I still look forward to the occaisonal interruption.

JBI

11-11-2008, 12:06 AM

We moving on to "Lemons"?

stlukesguild

11-11-2008, 12:07 AM

Quasi... sorry I've been tied up lately. I should be able to throw together some thoughts tomorrow (too tired after a day at school followed by 5 hours in the studio) on Montale before we come to a close.

stlukesguild

11-11-2008, 12:10 AM

It is a lovely poem... but I do think there are others also worth taking a look at before we call it quits. Like quasi I would certainly be open to suggestions for how to organize the discussion. I would certainly have liked some other input or suggestions by others for specific poems by Montale. I'd also like to see Petrarch drop by again and offer her insight.

Virgil

11-11-2008, 12:12 AM

Is it time for another poem? I haven't offerred one yet.

quasimodo1

11-11-2008, 05:13 AM

Yes, we're moving on to "The Lemonns" as Stlukes suggested earlier. I (we?) will await his intro. or not.

stlukesguild

11-11-2008, 07:51 PM

Well certainly... I limoni is it... but I am all for Virgil (or anyone else) offering another poem for discussion. I'm not up for making this my own show.

The Lemon Trees

Listen: the laureled poets
stroll only among shrubs
with learned names: ligustrum, acanthus, box.
What I like are streets that end in grassy
ditches where boys snatch
a few famished eels from drying puddles:
paths that struggle among the banks,
then dip among the tufted canes,
into the orchards, among the lemon trees.

Better if the gay palaver of the birds
is stilled, swallowed by the blue:
more clearly now, you hear the whisper
of genial branches in that air, barely astir,
the sense of that smell,
inseparable from earth,
that rains its restless sweetness in the heart.
Here, by some miracle, the war
of conflicted passions is stilled;
here even we the poor share the riches of the world-
the smell of the lemon trees...

But the illusion dies, time returns us
to noisy cities where the sky is only
patches of blue, high up, between the cornices.
Rain wearies the ground; over the buildings
winter's tedium thickens.
Light grows niggardly, the soul bitter.
And one day, through a gate ajar,
among the trees in the courtyard
we see the yellows of the lemon trees;
and the heart's ice thaws
and songs pelt
into the breast
and trumpets of gold pour forth
epiphanies of Light!

from The Lemon Trees, tr. William Arrowsmith

Ascoltami, i poeti laureati
si muovono soltanto fra le piante
dai nomi poco usati: bossi ligustri o acanti.
lo, per me, amo le strade che riescono agli erbosi
fossi dove in pozzanghere
mezzo seccate agguantanoi ragazzi
qualche sparuta anguilla:
le viuzze che seguono i ciglioni,
discendono tra i ciuffi delle canne
e mettono negli orti, tra gli alberi dei limoni.

Meglio se le gazzarre degli uccelli
si spengono inghiottite dall'azzurro:
più chiaro si ascolta il susurro
dei rami amici nell'aria che quasi non si muove,
e i sensi di quest'odore
che non sa staccarsi da terra
e piove in petto una dolcezza inquieta.
Qui delle divertite passioni
per miracolo tace la guerra,
qui tocca anche a noi poveri la nostra parte di ricchezza
ed è l'odore dei limoni.

Vedi, in questi silenzi in cui le cose
s'abbandonano e sembrano vicine
a tradire il loro ultimo segreto,
talora ci si aspetta
di scoprire uno sbaglio di Natura,
il punto morto del mondo, l'anello che non tiene,
il filo da disbrogliare che finalmente ci metta
nel mezzo di una verità.
Lo sguardo fruga d'intorno,
la mente indaga accorda disunisce
nel profumo che dilaga
quando il giorno piú languisce.
Sono i silenzi in cui si vede
in ogni ombra umana che si allontana
qualche disturbata Divinità.

Ma l'illusione manca e ci riporta il tempo
nelle città rurnorose dove l'azzurro si mostra
soltanto a pezzi, in alto, tra le cimase.
La pioggia stanca la terra, di poi; s'affolta
il tedio dell'inverno sulle case,
la luce si fa avara - amara l'anima.
Quando un giorno da un malchiuso portone
tra gli alberi di una corte
ci si mostrano i gialli dei limoni;
e il gelo dei cuore si sfa,
e in petto ci scrosciano
le loro canzoni
le trombe d'oro della solarità.

quasimodo1

11-11-2008, 07:56 PM

Sorry about the pm, just noticed this posting while I was writing that.

stlukesguild

11-11-2008, 08:51 PM

Almost my first thought upon reading this poem is to wonder whether Montale had read Goethe's Minon...

Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blühn,
Im dunklen Laub die Gold-Orangen glühn,
Ein sanfter Wind vom blauen Himmel weht,
Die Myrte still und hoch der Lorbeer steht,
Kennst du es wohl?
Dahin! Dahin
Möcht' ich mit dir, o mein Geliebter, zieh'n.

(Do you know the land where the lemon trees blossom?
Among dark leaves the golden oranges glow.
A gentle breeze from blue skies drifts.
The myrtle is still, and the laurel stands high.
Do you know it well?
There, there
would I go with you, my beloved.)

Some of the images seemingly suggest an awareness of Goethe's famous poem... albeit Montale's is certainly a very different poem.

quasimodo1

11-11-2008, 09:15 PM

I really can't comment of Goethe but I'll take your word for the association Stlukes. This passage, to me, is the most intrigueing but just where Montale is going with it must be more than obvious. .................................................. ................................... See, in these silences where things
give over and seem on the verge of betraying
their final secret,
Sometimes we feel we're about
to uncover an error in Nature,
The still point of the world, the link that won't hold,
the thread to untangle that will finally lead
to the heart of a truth.

Petrarch's Love

11-11-2008, 10:38 PM

Hi guys. I'm sorry to have been missing the Montale discussion, especially since the sound of his verse really knocks my socks off. I did finally pick up a copy of the book, but in my typical absent minded fashion I left it in my office. Fortunately, St. Luke's in his usual helpful fashion, seems to have posted "I Limoni" in full. I find that I just love his verse. The original is the kind of poetry that you read the first time hardly caring about the meaning because the sound of it and the feel of the way the words come together is so wonderful. Like the other poems we've seen by him on this thread, the imagery just quivers with life. It's immediate and intimate in the best possible way. On one level the poem reminds me of the actual experience of coming across those little hidden gardens that you periodically stumble across in Italian cities and of the beauty and lushness of the plants, often limoni, that grow there. That third stanza reminds me vividly of my feelings regarding a particular gated courtyard on my route home from classes in Siena.

These are brief personal reflections, however. The Goethe is interesting for comparison, St. Luke's. I bet Montale had read it. The resonance seems to be there. In terms of the original versus the translation, the beginning and the end lines particularly struck me as different. In the Italian, the first line "Ascoltami, i poeti laureati" makes it sound almost as though he is telling the poet laureates to "listen up" until you get to the next line and realize he was addressing the reader. "Ascoltami" has a very familiar, perhaps almost intimate sense to it too, and I'm not sure if either of these things quite translates to the English "listen" which sounds more formal and more clearly addressed to the reader. The first line works, though, whereas I feel as though the end line has lost a lot. He's really done his best with "epiphanies of light" but it sounds a bit cheezy and cliche next "le trombe d'oro della solarità," especially with the strong connotations of the brilliance, power and clarity of the sun (sol) in the final word, which is just lost in the translation. Indeed, I think much of that finale doesn't come across as forcefully in the original. Take this last group:

e il gelo dei cuore si sfa,
e in petto ci scrosciano
le loro canzoni
le trombe d'oro della solarità.

One thing the translation misses is the force and feel of a word like "scrosciano," which doesn't just meant to "pelt" but potentially to thunder, to storm, and the actual sound of the word itself stands out, especially from the rather short less ornate diction that immediately precedes it, as sounding forceful, almost grating: maybe the sound of it is comparable to using an english word like "scorching" or "excruciating," though the meaning is not quite as harsh as either of those. Also there's a verbal suspense, a sense of building from the way "they pelt/thunder in the breast" to "their song" and finally to the subject, the producers of this sound, the trumpets. The two penultimate lines make a reference to them that at first seems vaguely associated with the melting heart, then ambiguous, then finally the source is made clear in the brilliance of the trumpet image.

There are other places as well, for example in the passage quasi quoted above, "il punto morto del mondo" has a lot more force and complexity to it, with its overtures of death, than simply "The still point of the world." My sense is that in the English translation it comes across as a poem trying to be transcendent but sounding like something that has been done before, whereas in the Italian it transcends. Perhaps I'm being overly hard on the translation, however. Certainly you can still get a lot of the imagery and the idea out of the English version. I'll see how other people respond before adding anything further.

stlukesguild

11-11-2008, 10:39 PM

Quasi... yes... and concluding:

These are the silences where we see
in each departing human shade
some disturbed Divinity.

I am struck by a number of layers of "meaning" involved in this poem. Again... at the start the poet begins with his rhetorical devise of suggesting his own lack of merit... longing for the eloquence of another (pointed out earlier by Mortal Terror)... although not so directly. He but alludes to his own deficiencies... unlike the great poets who only spoke of plants with "learned names" (ligustrum, acanthus, box) what he likes are the simple back alley ways... the drying puddles, etc... but even with these simple pleasures, Montale paints them in such a "classically" beautiful manner... and then the lemon trees.

quasimodo1

11-11-2008, 10:46 PM

Petrarch: It is most difficult to add to your post; you're having such an intimate grasp of the Italian and you have enlightened me with your descriptions of just was said in English and meant in Italian.

stlukesguild

11-11-2008, 10:52 PM

Petrarch... yes the hidden garden is what I sense... as opposed to Goethe's foreknowledge of the magical, classical garden. Here Montale seems to suggest something of that Wordsworthian/Romantic epiphany... an experience of richness and beauty that even the poor may share... and an intimation (rapidly lost) of the "divine". But it is just an "illusion"... quickly lost as one goes back about one's daily life.

Petrarch's Love

11-11-2008, 11:18 PM

Yes, it's very resonant of the best stuff from the romantic period. Maybe little hints of "This lime tree bower my prison," though not so melancholy as that one. What is it about citrus and transcendence?

But it is just an "illusion"... quickly lost as one goes back about one's daily life.

Yes, the suggestion of its ephemeral and illusory qualities are suggested, but the poem doesn't end with an illusion dispelled. It ends, in that fantastic word, solarita, with a wonderful merging between the real warmth of the sun you imagine spilling through the outlines of the gate from the garden courtyard, and the brilliance of that light paired with the sonarity of the golden trumpets. Surely, too, the song of the trumpets is linked to the song of poetry in some way, referring us back to those poeti from the beginning. The pairing of the sun-like light and the song of the trumpets makes me think of those moments when Dante transcends from one level of purgatory to another, or ultimately when he makes it through to heaven. I'll have to get out my Commedia and see if there are any clear echoes going on here, or if this is just my own fancy at work. At any rate, I think it's important that the poem doesn't end with illusion but with a vision, pure and clear and ringing with truth.

And now I have "the trumpet shall sound" from Handel's Messiah stuck in my head...I'm so literal minded sometimes.

Petrarch's Love

11-11-2008, 11:20 PM

quasi--glad if my post could be helpful, but don't let your dependence on translation hold you back from commenting. You always have such good things to say.

Virgil

11-11-2008, 11:22 PM

What a marvelous poem. I noticed this poem when I foist got the book. I will study this tonight and have some comments to add tomorrow. But it really is lovely.

stlukesguild

11-11-2008, 11:25 PM

I think it's important that the poem doesn't end with illusion but with a vision, pure and clear and ringing with truth.

Agreed. Paradise Lost... and then regained. Montale always strikes me as striving for that vision... that epiphany... that spirituality that certainly in unquestioned in his poetic idol, Dante... but Montale lives in an era of doubt.

By the way... the musical allusions might also be owed largely to the poet's own earlier education as a musician.

stlukesguild

11-11-2008, 11:28 PM

I noticed this poem when I foist got the book.

Virgil... I know you are a New Yorker... but wouldn't "foist" actually be a Joisey accent (or so were my memories of my time in Jersey City. Sorry... I couldn't help myself.:blush: I'll go back to my corner now and bury my face in Montale again...

Virgil

11-11-2008, 11:37 PM

Bitterfly

11-12-2008, 10:41 AM

I am struck by a number of layers of "meaning" involved in this poem. Again... at the start the poet begins with his rhetorical devise of suggesting his own lack of merit... longing for the eloquence of another (pointed out earlier by Mortal Terror)... although not so directly. He but alludes to his own deficiencies... unlike the great poets who only spoke of plants with "learned names" (ligustrum, acanthus, box) what he likes are the simple back alley ways... the drying puddles, etc... but even with these simple pleasures, Montale paints them in such a "classically" beautiful manner... and then the lemon trees.

I have the impression that he's not pointing to his own deficiencies here but really trying to detach himself from tradition and his predecessors. The "laureled poets" can only speak of what is orderly and tidily classified by scientists, with names that come from a dead language and that ordinary people cannot understand (funnily enough, acanthus also represents "love of art" :D ). I also noted that lemon trees are ones that grow in winter (they can therefore represent sun and light in the midst of the most hostile months) and bear fruit, whereas the two plants that the learned poets use are decorative, and that laurels can be poisonous plants.

On the contrary, Montale seems to wish to sing of ordinary people and their drabness - boys from obviously poor families scrounging for food that is just as badly off as they are ("famished eels"), next to "drying puddles" (yuck) and "ditches" , later on "niggardly light" and "bitter" souls, and show that even in these surroundings one can discover moments of beauty (I agree that his description creates beauty) and epiphany. When you think about it, his final vision stems from not much: the glimpse caught of a few lemons in a courtyard (here he also seems to be in the position of a poor boy stealing glimpses of how the rich must live - "gold" and all that). But the poetry - the song - which comes out of it is beautiful.

I think the trajectory of the "paths" in the first stanza represents the difficulty of finding that beauty in such a hard environment (it first "struggles" then "dips" (falls), before finally arriving at a place of fruitfulness and fertility, the "orchards" and "lemon trees"). He really identifies himself with the poor, too ("we the poor"), which takes him even further from the laureled poets, whose path among the "shrubs" is anyway too easy.

I love the gradation from hearing to smell to sight in the second and third stanzas, and the final explosion which is rather synaesthetic. The last lines remind me of Revelations, because of the "trumpets of gold", and because of the visionary character of the lines. Maybe there are a few bibical overtones in the poem, with the word "miracle" and "even the poor share the riches of the world". The end resembles a little what one would expect Heaven to be like: lots of light, the angel's trumpets, and songs and warmth. After the winter of the soul.... it reminds me of Anderson's little matchstick girl, ha ha!!

As that conclusion seems a little surprising for a modernist poet, maybe it's not entirely to be taken at face value? After all, the first moment of vision or rather smell is debunked as an "illusion" (probably because it rested upon a stilling of time - and here maybe Montale is reflecting on the inexorable passage of time, which dispels such moments of beauty, pleasure?). Why shouldn't the second vision be just as transitory, since after all it it depends on a door left ajar - which will then be closed after a while?

stlukesguild

11-12-2008, 09:50 PM

Bitterfly... I don't dispute your interpretation of Montale as attempting to detach himself from his predecessors and from a tired tradition. But I never find him that simple... or rather there is always something ambivalent about his rejection of tradition in that it seems that he at once rejects it and even parodies it... but he is also deeply enamored of it. He is clearly deeply enamored of Dante, Petrarch, Leopardi... and the rest of the tradition.

As for the moment of epiphany... the Wordsworthian... or Blake-like vision... I'm not certain he wishes to debunk such... even as a Modernist. I think he is suspicious... doubtful... but he also admits that the whole of his poetry is "waiting for the miracle". I sense this in any number of other poems... a visionary sense of something miraculous... transcendent... is the least of experiences.

Bitterfly

11-12-2008, 10:09 PM

Yep, I agree with you on both points. The first since I really haven't read enough of him, and ambivalence makes sense - it must be easier to determine when you read the original Italian for possible intertextuality, echoes of previous poets, too, I suppose (wistful sigh...). The second because it's difficult to be sure. And epiphanies were certainly an aim for poets/writers of the period. And I didn't see any irony there (except in the choice of the plants, ha ha!)... I was just wondering.

The door ajar keeps ringing bells, by the way, but I don't know which ones!!!

Virgil

11-12-2008, 11:28 PM

Yes, it's very resonant of the best stuff from the romantic period.

I think I've pointed that out in a few of his poems. I think we can safely say it is a conscious thread that runs through his work. I do think here (and here I mean this volume, which is his first work) I think Montale stands in the tradition of Romanticism. I think it's a base to his vision. However, there is more I think than just Romanticism. I'm not sure I can put my finger on it exactly or even if I can articulate it. But look at these lines from this poem:

Here, by some miracle, the war
of conflicted passions is stilled;
here even we the poor share the riches of the world-
the smell of the lemon trees...
We see there an acquienence of emotional feeling, a universal sharing. Now this is still rooted in Romanticism, and that third stanza is almost pure Romanticism. But look at the beginning of the final stanza:

But the illusion dies, time returns us
to noisy cities where the sky is only
patches of blue, high up, between the cornices.
Rain wearies the ground; over the buildings
winter's tedium thickens.
Light grows niggardly, the soul bitter.
This strikes me as the opposite of Keats' Grecian Urn. Time doesn't freeze but returns, and the emotions mellow and turn in what I think is an aging, a maturing. I can't recall such a maturing from the original Romantics. Keats' Ode to a Nightinggale perhaps, but there it seems like it's eternal youth in emotion or death. Here there is a realization that life ticks on to sadness, even bitterness, until once again,

And one day, through a gate ajar,
among the trees in the courtyard
we see the yellows of the lemon trees;
and the heart's ice thaws
and songs pelt
into the breast
and trumpets of gold pour forth
epiphanies of Light!
Yes, it's quite Romantic with a Montale twist perhaps. ;)

Virgil

11-12-2008, 11:31 PM

I think the trajectory of the "paths" in the first stanza represents the difficulty of finding that beauty in such a hard environment (it first "struggles" then "dips" (falls), before finally arriving at a place of fruitfulness and fertility, the "orchards" and "lemon trees"). He really identifies himself with the poor, too ("we the poor"), which takes him even further from the laureled poets, whose path among the "shrubs" is anyway too easy.

I love the gradation from hearing to smell to sight in the second and third stanzas, and the final explosion which is rather synaesthetic. The last lines remind me of Revelations, because of the "trumpets of gold", and because of the visionary character of the lines. Maybe there are a few bibical overtones in the poem, with the word "miracle" and "even the poor share the riches of the world". The end resembles a little what one would expect Heaven to be like: lots of light, the angel's trumpets, and songs and warmth. After the winter of the soul.... it reminds me of Anderson's little matchstick girl, ha ha!!

As that conclusion seems a little surprising for a modernist poet, maybe it's not entirely to be taken at face value? After all, the first moment of vision or rather smell is debunked as an "illusion" (probably because it rested upon a stilling of time - and here maybe Montale is reflecting on the inexorable passage of time, which dispels such moments of beauty, pleasure?). Why shouldn't the second vision be just as transitory, since after all it it depends on a door left ajar - which will then be closed after a while?

Hey good point about the religious allusion. I think it's there. Epiphany has a religious context and trumpet of gold and the garden of eden.

JBI

11-12-2008, 11:55 PM

So are we saying it is modernist, in the sense that it builds itself on an Italian pastoral, and then undercuts it with the "chaotic" modern horror?

In a sense, I think the poem is very modernist. It seems to take romanticism, and put it on its head, with the removal of the possibility.

It reminds me almost of the dawn scene in The Wasteland, where the Dawn itself is deformed and decayed and obscured.

Also, I see a hint of Leopardi in the poem, with the contrast of the pastoral vision against the brutal realistic vision. I feel especially, a connection with his early Idyllic works, especially "La Sera del dì di Festa"

The night is sweet and clear, without a breeze,
and the moon rests in the gardens,
calm on the roofs, and reveals, clear,
far off, every mountain. O my lady,
the paths are still, and the night lights
shine here and there from the balconies:
you sleep, and sleep gently welcomed you
to your quiet room: nothing
troubles you: you still don’t know, or guess
with how deep a wound you’ve hurt my heart.
You sleep: I gaze at the sky
that seems so kind to my eyes:
gaze on ancient all-powerful Nature,
who created me for pain. She said:
‘I refuse you hope, even hope, and may
your eyes not shine, except with tears.’
Today was holy: now rest
from pleasure, remember in dream, perhaps,
how many you liked today, how many
liked you: not I, it’s not I that hope
to fill your thoughts. Instead I ask
what life has left me, throw myself
to earth, cry out, and tremble: oh,
terrible days of green youth! Ah, on the road
nearby, I hear the solitary song
of the worker returning to his poor
lodging, late, after the revels:
and it grips my heart fiercely
to think the whole world passes,
and scarcely leaves a trace. See: the holiday’s
over: some nondescript day follows:
time carries off all mortal things.
Where now’s the sound of all those
ancient peoples? Where are the cries
of our famous ancestors, Rome’s
vast empire, its weapons, the clash
of arms, crossing land and sea?
All’s peace and silence: the world
rests entirely, and we speak of them no more.
Now I remember, in my young days,
when the longed-for holiday was awaited,
how, once it had passed, I lay, in sadness,
pressed tight to my sheets: and, deep in the night,
a song I heard in the streets,
died, little by little, far off,
crushing my heart, as now.

Note this translation is weak, but taken because it is in the public domain.

If we throw this at it, and other Leopardi works, Montale seems to be lamenting the past, and the destructiveness of his time. The romantic link is there, but I think Montale builds on it, and manages to modernize it a bit, unlike Eliot or Pound did, though this one, I would think, relies more strongly on the romantic tradition than their work.

quasimodo1

11-19-2008, 11:09 PM

Eugenio Montale and Jonathan Galassi

from READING MONTALE
[By translator/writer Jonathan Galassi]

"…….They also hear constant echoes of an entire tradition. Italian lyric poetry can be seen as constituting a remarkably concise and unified line, starting with the thirteenth-century "stilnovisti" and their exemplar, Dante, the defining presence in Italian literature and the first to move the language out of the shadows of the classical past which in some respects endure to this day. The major figures--Petrarch, Foscolo, Manzoni, Leopardi -- are relatively few, and all of them echo in Montale's work. The poetic novel that ends with La bufera, then, can be read as a resume', a summation, perhaps a farewell to the Italian lyric enterprise, that love story tinged with an aura of the religious which begins with Dante and his inspiration, Beatrice.

In Ossi di Seppia the Italian reader hears echoes, too, of Montale's immediate forebears, the "crepuscolari", the post-symbolist "twilight" poets of his native Liguria, and behind them the sweet, sentimental, inventive voice of their major precursor, Giovanni Pascoli. This domestic, naturalistic strain alternates with the overstuffed turn-of-the-century rhetorical grandeur, tilted toward grandiosity, of Gabriele D'Annunzio, the Victor Hugo of Italian letters, who did everything that could be done with the language of his time -- and via whom Montale makes his first approaches to the style and vocabulary of Dante. Ossi di Seppia has been seen as a rewriting of D'Annunzio's "Alcyone", an attempt at wringing the neck of its overweening eloquence -- though Montale cannot help but resort at times to the very excesses he is fighting to liberate himself from. The book is a series of experiments -- many of them French-influenced, post-symbolist, impressionistic, synesthetic -- in creating a voice, which he achieves, definitively, in the "ossi brevi", the brief lyrics at the heart of the book which express an unconsoled pessimism in terse, paradoxical formulations."

[pp 418, 419 of Collected Poems 1920-1954]

Virgil

11-20-2008, 12:16 AM

I'd like to present a Montale poem. This may be the last one. And fittingly I pick the last poem of the collection.

Seacoasts

Seacoasts,
a spears of sawgrass
waving from a cliff
above the frenzy of the sea will do;
or two faded camellias
in deserted gardens,
and a golden eucalyptus plunging
amoung rustlings and birds crazily bursting
toward the light:
and instantly
unseen threads entwine me, butterfly
netted in a web
of quivering olives, sunflower eyes.

Sweet captivity, today, of these coasts
for the man who yields, briefly succumbing,
as though reliving an old
never to be forgotten game.
O seacoasts, what a tang was in that drink
you gave to one bewildered adolescent boy:
humpbacked hills fusing with sky
of bright blue mornings; in sand
along the beaches, the undertow ran strong
but no stronger than that shiver of being alive
in a world on fire; and everything seemed consumed
by its own inward blazing.

Days of tumbling and tossing
like cuttlefish bones in the breakers,
vanishing bit by bit;
becoming
gnarled tree or sea polished
pebble; melting away
in sunset colors, to dissolve as flesh
and flow back, a spring drunk on sunlight…
O seacoasts,
this was his prayer, that boy I used to be,
standing by a rusty balustrade,
who died slowly, smiling.

How much, O seas, these cold lights
speak to that tormented soul who fled you!
Broadswords of water disclosed through fissures
in swaying branches; brown rocks
in the spume; arrow-flash of roving
martins…
Ah, seacosts, if only someday
I could believe in you again,
funereal beauties, framing in gold
the agony of every being.
Today I come home to you
a stronger man (or do I deceive myself), although
my heart almost melts in memories, happy
but also bitter. Sad soul of my past,
and you, fresh purpose summoning me now,
perhaps the time has come to moor you
in some harbor, more calm, more wise.
And someday, once again, golden voices, bold
illusions will summon me forth
a soul no longer divided. Think:
change elegy to hymn; make yourself new;
lack no more—
If only,
like these branches
yesterday bare and sere, bursting now
with sap and quiverings,
I could feel—
even I, tomorrow, among fragrances and winds—
fresh-running dreams, a wild rush of voices
surging toward an outlet; and in the sunlight
that swathes you, seacoasts,
flower anew!

You'll have to look up the Italian. This was a lot of typing as is.

God, I love this "Days of tumbling and tossing/like cuttlefish bones in the breakers,/vanishing bit by bit".

stlukesguild

11-20-2008, 12:28 AM

Quasi... a nice, concise overview of what Montale means within the tradition of Italian poetry. I read the same in the Gallassi book a few weeks back. Much of what he speaks of we must take on faith... at least as far as the influences of more recent Italian precursors goes. I've yet to come across them in English translation. I was waiting for Petrarch... and for Virgil to offer up a preferred poem... but both have admitted to being quite tied up when I last spoke with them. I just got back from a trip out of state... and am getting over strep... but I'd like to throw out a little gem that caught my fancy:

Poems for Camillo Sbarbaro

Café at Rapallo

Christmas in the gleaming
tepidarium, cosmetic
fumes coiling from cups, curtained
shimmer of lights from beyond closed
panes, women profiled
in soft light among blazing jewels
and shot silk...
They've arrived,
the new sirens, on your native
shores! And now we need you, here,
old friend, Camillo, chronicler
of thrills and desires.

From the street a wild racket.

Outside the café
an indescribable music paraded by-
a blare of tin bugles, a silvery
tinkle of children's baptismal saucers:
the music of innocence passed us by...

With it marched a goblin world
in a clatter of tiny donkeys and carts,
and a bleat of papier maché
rams, and a gleam
of sabers sheathed in foil.
The generals, cocked hats
of cardboard, brandishing nougat
lances, passed by;
and then the rank and file
with candles and lanterns
and little boxes
that rattled with the tinniest sounds...

(I listened and marveled)

The hoard passed with the roar...

It found shelter in that greening pasture
where you and I will never graze again.

excerpts from William Arrowsmith's tr. Eugenio Montale

quasimodo1

11-20-2008, 12:42 AM

Stlukes: Your poem makes it clear to me that Arrowsmith is the superior translator of Montale; the scholarship of Galassi is just as impressive and I am taking on faith that passage from "Reading Montale". It was more than a posting...it was another learning experience re: Montale.

quasimodo1

11-20-2008, 12:45 AM

Sweet captivity, today, of these coasts
for the man who yields, briefly succumbing,
as though reliving an old
never to be forgotten game.
O seacoasts, what a tang was in that drink
you gave to one bewildered adolescent boy:
humpbacked hills fusing with sky
of bright blue mornings; in sand
along the beaches, the undertow ran strong
but no stronger than that shiver of being alive
in a world on fire; and everything seemed consumed
by its own inward blazing.
.................Truly a beautiful passage...almost as though it wasn't translated at all. But that's the goal of a good translator...invisibility.

stlukesguild

11-20-2008, 12:55 AM

The influences of which Gallassi speaks are clear: symbolism with the descriptive and sensory-laden images/words... and Impressionism. But Montale never seems to simply offer up but his own version of the past without some irony. Here I snese the great contrast between images of adult sophistication, modern worldliness, and even a sense-laden decadence... and suddenly this is interrupted by a vision (real? imagined?) of a cacophonous children's parade. Eventually the parade finds shelter in green pastures (the poet's past... memories of the past... lost innocence?) The notes make clear that there is a slight ironic self-mockery here... as part of the poet's lost pasts there were his earlier attempts at a sort of neoclassical pastoral poetry.

stlukesguild

11-20-2008, 01:00 AM

Acck! Cross posting!:blush: I bow to Virgil... and will return to my poem later... if at all.

JBI

11-23-2008, 01:26 PM

Hmm Virgil, it's an interesting poem, especially with the constant personification of the Seacoasts. What I think Montale is playing at is a sort of mature distortion of youth. The seacoasts I would assume symbolize to some extent the Genoese shores of his youth, and his past happiness before the war. But the problem is, he is returning after too much time, and the vision is distorted, and he cannot return. This was somewhat a popular preoccupation during Romanticism, but it is a little different in tone because of the layering of metaphor Montale approaches the Seacoast in.

The seacoasts seem to be the ones who have deserted Montale, and it is they which need to come back to him. That puzzles the reading, at makes the seacoast out to be somewhat of a different metaphor. To what though? The seas haven't changed of course, so what is meant by the changing, and rebirth a new. The sea is constant, as we are told in other works of his, and in other works of poetry.

I think it is too easy to read this poem as similar to Wordsworth, or even Leopardi, but I think it means something more. The sea, we must remember, is something more than that to Leopardi. Perhaps he is implying that he feels to attached, and constrained to the land now to actually break away, and be enveloped again by the sea?

Virgil

11-23-2008, 01:50 PM

I pretty much agree with everything you said JBI. In one respect it is traditional Romanticism, but I do feel it it layered with somethig else. What that something else is I can't quite articulate. In this poem that something else seems to lie in this passage:

Ah, seacosts, if only someday
I could believe in you again,
funereal beauties, framing in gold
the agony of every being.
Today I come home to you
a stronger man (or do I deceive myself), although
my heart almost melts in memories, happy
but also bitter. Sad soul of my past,
and you, fresh purpose summoning me now,
perhaps the time has come to moor you
in some harbor, more calm, more wise.
And someday, once again, golden voices, bold
illusions will summon me forth
a soul no longer divided.

That division of soul seems modern to me. It's as if he's his personality, his persona itself, has fragmented with experience. Even the "(or do I deceive myself)" creates a sensation of split identity. I do believe that's modern. Though it would be interesting to compare this with Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey." There too there is a division of memory with persona, but I don't think (I do not have the poem fresh in my mind) I would go so far as saying it's a fragmentation as in Montale. without a doubt though Montale's roots are in Romanticism. Whether he advances it or not is possibly debatable.

JBI

11-23-2008, 02:03 PM

Yes, but that bid is rather common in romanticism, for instance:

Tantramar Revisited by Charles G. D. Roberts

Summers and summers have come, and gone with the flight of the swallow;
Sunshine and thunder have been, storm, and winter, and frost;
Many and many a sorrow has all but died from remembrance,
Many a dream of joy fall'n in the shadow of pain.
Hands of chance and change have marred, or moulded, or broken,
Busy with spirit or flesh, all I most have adored;
Even the bosom of Earth is strewn with heavier shadows, --
Only in these green hills, aslant to the sea, no change!
Here where the road that has climbed from the inland valleys and woodlands,
Dips from the hill-tops down, straight to the base of the hills, --
Here, from my vantage-ground, I can see the scattering houses,
Stained with time, set warm in orchards, meadows, and wheat,
Dotting the broad bright slopes outspread to southward and eastward,
Wind-swept all day long, blown by the south-east wind.

Skirting the sunbright uplands stretches a riband of meadow,
Shorn of the labouring grass, bulwarked well from the sea,
Fenced on its seaward border with long clay dykes from the turbid
Surge and flow of the tides vexing the Westmoreland shores.
Yonder, toward the left, lie broad the Westmoreland marshes, --
Miles on miles they extend, level, and grassy, and dim,
Clear from the long red sweep of flats to the sky in the distance,
Save for the outlying heights, green-rampired Cumberland Point;
Miles on miles outrolled, and the river-channels divide them, --
Miles on miles of green, barred by the hurtling gusts.

Miles on miles beyond the tawny bay is Minudie.
There are the low blue hills; villages gleam at their feet.
Nearer a white sail shines across the water, and nearer
Still are the slim, grey masts of fishing boats dry on the flats.
Ah, how well I remember those wide red flats, above tide-mark
Pale with scurf of the salt, seamed and baked in the sun!
Well I remember the piles of blocks and ropes, and the net-reels
Wound with the beaded nets, dripping and dark from the sea!
Now at this season the nets are unwound; they hang from the rafters
Over the fresh-stowed hay in upland barns, and the wind
Blows all day through the chinks, with the streaks of sunlight, and sways them
Softly at will; or they lie heaped in the gloom of a loft.

Now at this season the reels are empty and idle; I see them
Over the lines of the dykes, over the gossiping grass.
Now at this season they swing in the long strong wind, thro' the lonesome
Golden afternoon, shunned by the foraging gulls.
Near about sunset the crane will journey homeward above them;
Round them, under the moon, all the calm night long,
Winnowing soft grey wings of marsh-owls wander and wander,
Now to the broad, lit marsh, now to the dusk of the dike.
Soon, thro' their dew-wet frames, in the live keen freshness of morning,
Out of the teeth of the dawn blows back the awakening wind.
Then, as the blue day mounts, and the low-shot shafts of the sunlight
Glance from the tide to the shore, gossamers jewelled with dew
Sparkle and wave, where late sea-spoiling fathoms of drift-net
Myriad-meshed, uploomed sombrely over the land.

Well I remember it all. The salt, raw scent of the margin;
While, with men at the windlass, groaned each reel, and the net,
Surging in ponderous lengths, uprose and coiled in its station;
Then each man to his home, -- well I remember it all!

Yet, as I sit and watch, this present peace of the landscape, --
Stranded boats, these reels empty and idle, the hush,
One grey hawk slow-wheeling above yon cluster of haystacks, --
More than the old-time stir this stillness welcomes me home.
Ah, the old-time stir, how once it stung me with rapture, --
Old-time sweetness, the winds freighted with honey and salt!
Yet will I stay my steps and not go down to the marshland, --
Muse and recall far off, rather remember than see, --
Lest on too close sight I miss the darling illusion,
Spy at their task even here the hands of chance and change.

I think the shattering of the national pastoral, which so preoccupied the late romantics and symbolists, is what Montale seems to be building on. The early idyllic existence which Montale so craves seems impossible. The problem though, is the ending, where he imagine s it created anew - that either implies something strange, or that he plans to die and be reobrn, or that someone else will be moved by the waters.

Virgil

11-23-2008, 02:17 PM

Hmm, I don't think I see a fragmentation in that poem JBI. I see a similar theme as in Wordsworth: I had this sensation from nature and it has changed me and now I return to it a different man. Perhaps Montale is also along those lines. Perhaps I'm injecting too much into Montale. It just seems (tenuous I agree) that Montale is fragmenting his persona (he having two selves in response to the nature) rather than an evolution as in Wordsworth and that Roberts poem. Do see you what I'm trying to say? Whether I'm correct in saying that I don't know. I'm basing a lot on just a few words.

JBI

11-23-2008, 02:36 PM

stlukesguild

11-23-2008, 02:39 PM

I'd like to join in this discussion... but I have to run. Social appearance I must make. I'll try to post some thoughts later.

Virgil

11-23-2008, 02:44 PM

The problem though, the one I'm having anyway, is with the sense of rebirth. What does that imply? I am thinking it implies death, what do others think? I think he knows they cannot flower anew, and is being ironic, implying that such a thing is impossible in this life. The reunification with the Sea must, I would argue, come after death - after he escapes the distance imposed on their relationship by time.

You're referrig to this section:

If only,
like these branches
yesterday bare and sere, bursting now
with sap and quiverings,
I could feel—
even I, tomorrow, among fragrances and winds—
fresh-running dreams, a wild rush of voices
surging toward an outlet; and in the sunlight
that swathes you, seacoasts,
flower anew!

Hmm, I see what you're saying. I can't answer if that's ironic. Someone who really knows Italian needs to read it in the original. That's a meaning relying on tone that one can't trust to translation.

quasimodo1

11-23-2008, 05:26 PM

"But the problem is, he is returning after too much time, and the vision is distorted, and he cannot return. This was somewhat a popular preoccupation during Romanticism, but it is a little different in tone because of the layering of metaphor Montale approaches the Seacoast in."

"The seacoasts seem to be the ones who have deserted Montale, and it is they which need to come back to him. That puzzles the reading, at makes the seacoast out to be somewhat of a different metaphor. To what though? The seas haven't changed of course, so what is meant by the changing, and rebirth a new. The sea is constant, as we are told in other works of his, and in other works of poetry." I am responding mostly to this posting of JBI and my only addition to the conversation is that many who lived through a world war (either one) feel the world and the seacoasts and by extension state boundries and personal boundries have changed for "real" and they can never look at their world the same. It wouldn't necessarily, in my opinion, require that one be a combatant or victim for this negative epiphany to be a hard and fast mindset.

stlukesguild

11-23-2008, 08:42 PM

On one level there seems a clear echo of a Wordworthian return to a beloved landscape that held such import... such sense of timelessness... only to find that it/the poet has changed. What has changed him? "Days of tumbling and tossing/like Cuttle Fish Bones in the breakers/vanishing bit by bit/... melting away/in sunset colors, to dissolve as flesh..." But he admits to an inability to return to the past: he returns home "a stronger man..." "but also bitter..." And he imagines/longs for the ability to become as he once was... to be wiped fresh... new. If only he could be reborn like nature:

If only,
like these branches
yesterday bare and sere, bursting now
with sap and quiverings...

quasimodo1

11-23-2008, 10:56 PM

But the illusion dies, time returns us
to noisy cities where the sky is only
patches of blue, high up, between the cornices.
Rain wearies the ground; over the buildings
winter's tedium thickens.
Light grows niggardly, the soul bitter.
And one day, through a gate ajar,
among the trees in the courtyard
we see the yellows of the lemon trees;
and the heart's ice thaws
and songs pelt
into the breast
and trumpets of gold pour forth
epiphanies of Light!
...............Arrowsmith......................... .............

But the illusion fails, and time returns us
to noisy cities where the blue
is seen in patches, up between the roofs.
The rain exhausts the earth then;
winter's tedium weighs the houses down,
the light turns miserly-- the soul bitter.
Till one day through a half-shut gate
in a courtyard, there among the trees,
we can see the yellow of the lemons;
and the chill in the heart
melts, and deep in us
the golden horns of sunlight
pelt their songs.
..............Galassi............................. ....................

But the dream fails and time returns
us to the raucous towns where the sky
shows only in broken pieces pinched high
between the cornices of buildings.
Now rain tires the earth, winter dullness
heaps upon the houses,
the daylight grows grudging, the soul is grim.
When one day through a gate left open
there appears among the trees in a courtyard
the yellow light of lemons;
and the icy heart melts
as in the breast roar
their songs,
the gold trumpets of solarity.
*
..............Millicent Bell.................................

stlukesguild

11-23-2008, 11:35 PM

Repeatedly Montale alludes to the transformative... live giving... almost miraculous aspect of the sea. I am especially taken by an earlier poem in Cuttle Fish Bones:

Falsetto

Esterina, your twentieth year now threatens,
a cloud of grayish pink
that day by day enswathes you.
You know, and you're not afraid.
We'll see you in the waves, swallowed
by a smoky haze torn
or thickened by the raging wind.
Later you'll rise from ashen breakers,
more sunburnt than ever,
stretching toward some new adventure,
your face so intense
you might be
the huntress Diana.
Your twenty autumns mount,
springtimes past enfold you;
and now for you a presage rings
in Elysian spheres.
May it never be a cracked urn struck
you hear; my prayer for you
is a peal of bells
ineffable.

Anxious tomorrows leave you unafraid.
All grace, you stretch
on the rock edge with salt
and burn your body in the sun...

How right you are! This happy moment
is yours! Live now, unafraid!
Already your gaiety engages the future;
a shrug of your shoulders
topples the bastion
of your unknown tomorrow.
You rise, step out on that small
thin plank above the screeching abyss,
profile incised
against a background of pearl.
At the tip of the trembling board you hesitate,
laugh, and then, as though ravished by a wind,
plunge into the welcoming arms
of your divine lover.

We watch you- we, of the race of those
who cling to the shore.

(excerpt tr. William Arrowsmith)

In a manner this poem almost reminds me of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice in which the elderly artist imagines/perceives something god(dess-like) in the youth on the beach. But it is just as much the sea as the young girl that he sees as something miraculous now somehow lost... removed from him... The sea is almost transformative... as Esterina... the beautiful young woman Montale watches... is "swallowed" by "a smoky haze" and rises "from ashen breakers" more burnt than ever... and more like a goddess... almost as if a Phoenix... rising from the fire and the ashes. And he watches her admiringly again dive into the "welcoming arms" of her "divine lover", the sea... but it seems as if he can no longer participate/believe in the transformative power of the sea... he can no longer rise from the ashes.

A similar feeling of something lost... and considering the age of the poet... a feeling of having prematurely aged... exist in the final poem, Seacoasts as well that leads me in part to agree with Quasi's suggestion that the experience of World War I... which is never explicitly referred to in these poems... is still a motivation. Montale, I am aware, was profoundly inspired by Eliot... and certainly Eliot conveys a similar sense of fracture with a past belief in the rebirth... in being born again... spiritually and otherwise.

quasimodo1

11-23-2008, 11:53 PM

Your twenty autumns mount,
springtimes past enfold you;
and now for you a presage rings
in Elysian spheres.
May it never be a cracked urn struck
you hear; my prayer for you
is a peal of bells
ineffable.
These lines are "ineffable" even among the multiple great passages of Montale. I'm not sure I hear any Thomas Mann echoes...the atmosphere of "Death in Venice" is intensely dark trying to be light.

quasimodo1

11-24-2008, 05:31 PM

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE1DA113AF930A15751C0A9609482 60&sec=&spon=&&scp=5&sq=Eugenio%

20Montale%20reviews&st=cse --- --- BETWEEN THE LOVE OF CLIZIA AND MOSCA

By JOHN AHERN; JOHN AHERN IS THE DANTE ANTOLINI PROFESSOR OF ITALIAN LETTERS AT VASSAR COLLEGE.
Published: February 23, 1986
THE STORM AND OTHER THINGS By Eugenio Montale. Translated by William Arrowsmith. 219 pp. New York: W. W. Norton &

Company. Cloth, $14.95. Paper, $6.95. "WHEN Eugenio Montale received the Nobel

Prize in 1975 for five formidable volumes of poetry (of which ''The Storm and Other Things'' is the third, most

difficult and most beautiful), no one doubted that the prize had gone to the poems, not the public persona. Montale

generated no legend. No shred of gossip clung to his heavyset, almost invisible figure. His career illustrated, it

seemed, the irrelevance of a poet's private life to his work. The tight, acoustically intriguing poems with their

murky private allusions blocked all attempts to extract an autobiography. At most, the frequency with which they

addressed women, unnamed and named - Esterina, Gertin, Dora Markus, Liuba, Vixen, Mosca and, above all, Clizia -

allowed one to surmise that for Montale life, like art, was quintessentially speech to a woman." --- --- --- ---

-"But now, five years after his death, we must learn to reread Montale's works, particularly this splendid book,

against the background of his life, because the cunning poet himself deliberately broke the seal around his private

life in 1967 by giving Luciano Rebay of Columbia University his correspondence with a friend, Roberto Bazlen. Those

letters document a traumatic period when he was torn between the love of two women, ''Clizia'' and ''Mosca.''

Entrusting the bundle to Mr. Rebay, he dryly remarked that it might interest posterity. Later he gave journalists

details of Clizia's life without revealing her name. By the late 1970's educated guesses about her identity were

being made in private and in print. Two years ago Mr. Rebay lifted the veil when he published key portions of the

letters with much new biographical information in the scholarly journal Forum Italicum." {first two paragraphs of this review}