Eugenio Montale and the Literature of the Sixties: Intertexts forSatura and the Later Poetry John Clifford Butcher University College London Submitted for the Degree of PhD ProQuest Number: 10015796 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10015796 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Abstract This thesis sets out to explore the significant impact that poetry, fiction and essays published in the Sixties had on the development of Eugenio Montale’s later poetry. The primary focus is Satura (1971) but space is also accorded to Montale’s ensuing four collections,Diario del ’71 e del ’72 (1973), Quaderno di quattro anni (1977), Altri versi (1980) and Diario postumo (1996). The first part of this study delves into the role played by contemporary literature in that ‘svolta’ that took place with the composition of the ‘Xenia’ {Satura). Amongst those texts mentioned are an Italian translation of verse by William Carlos Williams and Natalia Ginzburg’s Lessico famigliare. The second part of this thesis deals with those works that helped effect the grand shift from the poetic mode of the ‘Xenia’ to that of ‘Satura T and ‘Satura IT (the final two sections ofSatura). It devotes detailed attention to several works from the Sixties including Vittorio Sereni’s Gli strumenti umani, Nelo Risi’s Dentro la sostanza, Karl Lowith’s Critica dell’esistenza storica and Andrea Zanzotto’s La Beltà. During the inquiries into the genesis of the overall form and content of the ‘Xenia’ and ‘Satura I’ / ‘Satura II’ many cases are identified in which the works examined would also appear to have contributed directly to the creation of a particular passage in one of the poems inSatura (or in the successive collections). The third and final part of this study sets out several hypotheses of local textual influence relating to works not discussed extensively in the earlier two parts. dealing firstly with Italo Calvino’s fiction of the Sixties and then with other contemporary texts by Italian writers such as Luciano Erba, Antonio Barolini and Umberto Eco. Table of Contents Acknowledgements 7 Preface 8 Introduction 13 Part I - The ‘Xenia’ 46 ‘Una nuova grammatica’ : The Nature of the ‘Xenia’ 46 The Importance of English and North American Poetry 55 The ‘Xenia’ and Contemporary Italian Poetry 68 The ‘Xenia’ and Natalia Ginzburg’s Lessico famigliare 75 Part II - ‘ Satura T and ‘ Satura IT 104 The Novelty of ‘Satura T and ‘Satura IT 105 From Vittorio Sereni’sGli strumenti umani to Satura 111 ‘Satura T, ‘Satura IT and Satirical Verse 135 (i) Christian Morgenstem, Canti grotteschi 137 (ii) Poesia satirica nell ’Italia d ’oggi 141 (iii) The Poetry of Nelo Risi 151 History and Karl Lowith’s Critica dell ’esistenza storica 170 ‘Satura T, ‘Satura IF and Andrea Zanzotto’s La Beltà 182 Beyond ‘ Satura I ’ and ‘ Satura IF 201 Part III - Further Intertextual Echoes in Satura and the Later Poetry 224 Echoes from Italo Calvino’s Fiction 225 Further Intertextual Echoes 251 (i) Luciano Erba, II male minore 251 (ii) Giovanni Giudici, La vita in versi and Autobiologia 253 (iii) Antonio Barolini,L ’ultima contessa di famiglia 260 (iv) Sergio Solmi,Dal halcone 265 (v) Umberto Eco, Apocalittici e integrati 269 Conclusion 281 Bibliography 297 Acknowledgements I gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance given to me by the University of London in the form of a two-year Stem Studentship (September 1999-August 2001). I would also like to thank the Italian Foreign Office for having awarded me a scholarship to study at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze from October 2002 to January 2003. During my research many people were kind enough to discuss with me the poetry of Eugenio Montale. To name just a few of these people, I would like to express here my thanks to Laura Barile, Annalisa Cima, Franco Contorbia, the late Maria Corti, Francesco De Rosa, Giovanni Falaschi, Carlo Ginzburg, Giovanni Giudici, Maria Antonietta Grignani, Mario Luzi, Guido Mazzoni, Pierluigi Fellini, Nelo Risi and Andrea Zanzotto. Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge my immense gratitude towards my two supervisors, Anna Laura Lepschy and Emmanuela Tandello. Their advice and encouragement has proved to be of tremendous worth during the composition of this thesis. Preface Che sia venuto il momento di rileggere Montale non gli Ossi I’ultimo ma quale? Satura per esempio dal linguaggio sottotono (Nelo Risi, "Che sia venuto il momenta')^ Whilst acknowledging the fact that there exist significant points of divergence between Ossi di seppia. Le occasioni and La bufera e altro, as well as the fact that the successive five collections by the same poet manifest a certain degree of heterogeneity amongst themselves, one may nonetheless claim quite legitimately that Montale’s verse production falls into two grand phases. On the one hand, there is the Montale of the first three collections, the Montale of dramatic seascapes and landscapes, of abundant flora and fauna, of fervid eros, of rich imagery, of grand allegories, the intensely lyrical Montale that has long since been accorded pride of place in the realm of Twentieth-century Italian verse. On the other hand, there is the Tater’ Montale, the poet of the Sixties and Seventies, the prosaic, the comic, the gnomic, the satirical, the diaristic Montale of Satura, Diario del ’71 e del ’72, Quaderno di quattro anni, Altri versi and Diario postumo? Now, if the Montale fromOssi to Bufera has been the object of a vast amount of writing (amongst modem Italian authors only figures like Pirandello, Gadda, Pasolini and Calvino can come anywhere near to rivalling the Genoese poet from the standpoint of sheer quantity of critical studies), the later Montale has to date been relatively neglected by scholars. This is a shame since the post-Bufera verse is, qualitatively speaking, on a par with the bulk of the most interesting Italian verse of the last few decades. In particular. Satura, one of the most important works in Italian to have been published in the second half of the Twentieth century, deserves a great deal more attention than that which it has received so far.^ Unlike most of the studies focusing on the later verse currently available, the principal critical approach adopted in this investigation is neither formal nor thematic. It is, instead, intertextual. The following pages will argue that literature first published in the Sixties, give or take a few years, stimulated and moulded to a large degree the poetry of Montale’s final two decades. The primary focus of the present study will be Satura (1971), that work which inaugurated the second grand phase in Montale’s poetic career, but ample space will also be reserved for the successive Diari (1973) and Quaderno (1977). Some mention will also be made of Altri versi (1980), a collection compiled by the editors ofL ’opera in versi, and the controversial 1996 volume Diario postumo. Following an introduction discussing Montale’s relationship with other texts, relevant works of criticism, the issue of the validity of intertextual conjectures and sources of information concerning what the poet read, the first part of this thesis delves into the importance of contemporary literature for the composition of the ‘Xenia’{Satura). The major innovations to be found in this series of poems compared to Montale’s previous verse are, it is argued, the deployment of a less elaborate lexis and syntax, a greater 10 emphasis than ever before on the everyday and the humdrum and, in general, a noteworthy lowering of tone, from the high lyricism Buferaof to something far closer to the colloquial. Most likely, recent American literature enacted some role in this shift in Montale’s style and, indeed, in part one space is apportioned to two writers from the United States: Robert Lowell and William Carlos Williams. Naturally, contemporary Italian verse was also of salience for the ‘Xenia’. Here, we may talk generically of an influence on Montale of the overall literaryZeitgeist, exemplified in Mario Luzi’s production and in the early work of writers such as Nelo Risi, Luciano Erba and Giorgio Orelli. All the same, only one recent Italian poetry collection stands out as being worthy of special attention within the context of an intertextual investigation into the genesis of the ‘Xenia’, Giorgio Caproni’sII seme delpiangere and, in particular, the section in this volume entitled ‘Versi livomesi’, like the ‘Xenia’ a miniature ‘canzoniere’ for a dead loved one articulated in a most transparent language and style. Yet, the principal contemporary Italian intertext for the ‘Xenia’ was in all likelihood not a collection of verse but, instead, a novel first published in 1963: Natalia Ginzburg’s Lessico famigliare. The final section of part one is entirely devoted to this most unusual volume. The second part of this thesis deals with texts that might conceivably have contributed to the formation of the final two sections Satura,of ‘Satura I’ and ‘Satura II’, a corpus of material that in good part differs substantially from the ‘Xenia’ and, indeed, all of Montale’s prior verse output. Firstly, it is suggested that Vittorio Sereni’sGli strumenti umani affected the metre of the later poems ofSatura and that the same 1965 collection also encouraged Montale to engage as never before with the wider contemporary reality.