Poetic Diaries 1971 and 1972

by Montale, Eugenio; Arrowsmith, William; Warren, Rosanna

• ISBN13: 9780393344196
• ISBN10: 0393344193
• Edition: 00
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-12-03
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Summary

Poetic Diaries 1971 and 1972 is ruled by a brusque economy, and Montale's is, here, a poetics of magnificent reduction. The poet meditates on the very conditions of his art: language reveals itself to be madness, and poetry a broken promise. The Muse has become a scarecrow: "She still has / one sleeve, with which she conducts her scrannel / straw quartet. It's the only music I can stand." And yet music it is, and time and time again Montale attains a contrarian grandeur that renews faith in the art he punishes. These poems are dense and dramatic, evasive and erotic and vividly alive.

Author Biography

Eugenio Montale (1896-1981) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975. In addition to his poetry, he was also the author of many works of nonfiction and a translator of authors including Shakespeare, Herman Melville, and T. S. Eliot. William Arrowsmith (1924-1992) was a renowned classicist, translator, and critic who also translated works by Euripides, Aristophanes, and Cesare Pavese. Rosanna Warren is the author of five books of poetry as well as works of criticism and translation. She teaches at Boston University and lives in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. xi
Editor's Note	p. xv
Poetic Diary: 1971	p. 1
To Leone Traverso	p. 3
When the wild Witch plays hide-and-seek…	p. 3
I too once dreamed of being…	p. 3
Poor Art	p. 5
Changing Color	p. 7
Like Zaccheus	p. 11
The Positive	p. 13
The Negative	p. 15
To C.	p. 17
Corso Dogali	p. 19
Red on Red	p. 21
Toward the Bottom	p. 23
The Kingfisher	p. 25
In the Courtyard	p. 27
Hiding Places	p. 29
EI Desdichado	p. 31
Receding	p. 33
My Muse	p. 35
The Driver	p. 37
Where Charity Begins	p. 39
The Prick	p. 41
Fire	p. 43
To That Woman Who Reads the Newspapers	p. 45
Shooting at a Moving Target	p. 47
The Swift	p. 49
The Form of the World	p. 51
Lac d'Annécy	p. 53
The Poet	p. 55
The Big Deal	p. 57
Imitation of Thunder	p. 59
At the Conference	p. 61
The Milk-Shake	p. 63
We're fed up with…	p. 67
The Language of God	p. 69
At This Point	p. 71
If evil naturaliter can't desist…	p. 73
I never tire of telling my trainer…	p. 75
The Triumph of Trash	p. 77
Dr. Schweitzer	p. 79
Early July	p. 81
I repeat, I'm ready…	p. 83
The Imponderable	p. 85
Letter to Bobi	p. 87
Without Surprise	p. 89
Letter to Malvolio	p. 91
p.p.c.	p. 95
Poetic Diary: 1972	p. 97
Early or Late	p. 99
Visitors	p. 101
The Odor of Heresy	p. 105
Flood Tides	p. 109
For a Ninth Stanza	p. 113
Fame and the Fisc	p. 115
He who pulls the strings…	p. 117
Jaufré	p. 119
The Horse	p. 121
Nocturne	p. 123
Figures of Speech	p. 125
The Terror of Existence	p. 127
Verboten	p. 129
What Matters Most	p. 131
Kingfisher	p. 133
The Chiming Pendulum Clock	p. 135
Others die for us…	p. 137
To a Great Philosopher	p. 139
The Hermit Crab	p. 141
In an "Italian" Garden	p. 143
On the Beach	p. 145
The New Iconographers	p. 147
Asor	p. 149
At Annécy Again	p. 151
The Lord of the Revels	p. 153
There's No Dying	p. 155
Men have organized themselves…	p. 157
Life in the Trojan Horse…	p. 159
Annetta	p. 161
The Hunt	p. 165
Between Light and Dark	p. 167
Opinions	p. 169
A Millenarian	p. 171
Decline of Values	p. 173
My Optimism	p. 175
Two Epigrams	p. 177
I don't know why it's held…	p. 177
That I deserve punishment…	p. 177
Diamantina	p. 179
We must prefer…	p. 183
No boxing-match or card-game…	p. 185
Sorapis, 40 Years Ago	p. 187
No Coups de théâtre	p. 189
In hoc signo…	p. 191
L'Élan Vital	p. 193
Tired Dancer	p. 195
To My Cricket	p. 197
In Conclusion	p. 199
Notes	p. 201
Index	p. 209
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