Selected Essays

by Eugenio Montale

English, Italian (translation)

216 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1978

About the author

Eugenio Montale was born on October 12, 1896 in Genoa, Italy. He was the youngest son of Domenico Montale and Giuseppina (Ricci) Montale. They were brought up in a business atmosphere, as their father was a trader in chemicals. Ill health cut short his formal education and he was therefore a self-taught man free from conditioning except that of his own will and person. He spent his summers at the family villa in a village. This small village was near the Ligurian Riviera, an area which has had a profound influence on his poetry and other works. Originally Montale aspired to be an opera singer and trained under the famous baritone Ernesto Sivori. Surprisingly he changed his profession and went on to become a poet who can be considered the greatest of the twentieth century’s Italian poets and one who won the prestigious Nobel Prize in Literature in 1975 "for his distinctive poetry which, with great artistic sensitivity, has interpreted human values under the sign of an outlook on life with no illusions."

Reviews

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The focus of these 40+ short essays by the acclaimed Nobel Prize winning Italian poet is predominantly that of other writers. The likes of Dante, Svevo, Moravia, Lampedusa, and Quasimodo from his native Italy, to Joyce, Hemingway, Faulkner, Sartre, Camus, Pasternak, and Nabokov, to name but a few. The last few essays look at more general literary and politcal themes. Montale's insights and critical thinking here led to a really interesting and intelligent book all round. Can't fault the translation either, which was very good.