Poetry Bookclub 2

[Bitterfly]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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]

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... 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]

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]

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]

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]

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! 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.