Poetry Bookclub 2

[JBI]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[stlukesguild]

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]

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]

"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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...=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}

[JBI]

Anyone up for resurrecting this discussion?

[quasimodo1]

Let me see if I can make another moot point.