Montale and Dante by Arshi Pipa

This is the first book-length study in English of the work of Eugenio Montale, who is probably the greatest living Italian poet. Montale is complex and difficult, but interest in his poetry is increasing among English-speaking scholars and readers, and this study will contribute substantially to an understanding and appreciation of it. Professor Pipa focuses his examination on the influence which Dante's poetry has had on Montale's work. Montale has been called "Dantesque" by some critics for his frequent use of Dantean language and for certain affinities with the Florentine poet. By his reading of Montale "through the lens of Dante," as he describes his method, Professor Pipa finds that Dante has been to Montale not merely a linguistic or literary model but a poetic ideal to emulate. Professor Pipa provides a complete bibliography of poetry, prose, and translations by Montale and lists the most important critical and biographical monographs and articles about him. A bilingual appendix includes five prose selections by Montale, published for the first time in English translation. Montale's poetry has appeared in three slim Ossi di seppia (Cuttlefish Bones), Le Occasioni (The Occasions), and La Bufera e altro (The Storm and Something Else) published in 1925, 1939, and 1956 respectively. His prose work, La Farfalla di Dinard (The Butterfly of Dinard), includes autobiographical short stories. Montale is also a critic of literature and music. This is Volume 4, Minnesota Monographs in the Humanities, of which Gerhard H, Weiss is the series editor.