Poetry Bookclub 2

[stlukesguild]

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]

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

[quasimodo1]

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

[stlukesguild]

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]

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

[stlukesguild]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.