Eugenio Montale
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Senator for life Eugenio Montale |
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|---|---|
 |
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| Member of the Italian Chamber | |
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In office 16 May 1963 – 12 September 1981 |
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| Constituency | Milan |
| Senator for Life | |
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In office 13 June 1967 – 12 September 1981 |
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| President | Giuseppe Saragat |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
October 12, 1896 Genoa, Kingdom of Italy |
| Died | September 12, 1981 (aged 84) Milan, Italy |
| Political party |
Independent (1963–1972; 1976–1977) Italian Liberal Party (1972–1976) Italian Republican Party (1977–1981) |
| Profession | Poet, writer, editor, translator, politician |
| Religion | Spiritualism |
| Awards |
Nobel Prize in Literature 1975 |
Eugenio Montale (Italian: [euˈdʒɛnjo monˈtale]; 12 October 1896 – 12 September 1981) was an Italian poet, prose writer, editor and translator, and recipient of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is widely considered the greatest Italian lyric poet since Giacomo Leopardi. In 1973 he was awarded the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings in Struga, Macedonia.
Montale was born in Genoa. His family were chemical products traders (his father supplied Italo Svevo's firm). The poet's niece, Bianca Montale, in her Cronaca famigliare ("Family Chronicle") of 1986 portrays the family's common characteristics as "nervous fragility, shyness, concision in speaking, a tendency to see the worst in every event, a certain sense of humour".
Montale was the youngest of six sons. He recalled:
We were a large family. My brothers went to the scagno ["office" in Genoese]. My only sister had a university education, but I had no such opportunity. In many families the unspoken arrangement existed that the youngest was released from the task of keeping up the family name.
In 1915 Montale worked as an accountant, but was left free to follow his literary passion, frequenting the city's libraries and attending his sister Marianna's private philosophy lessons. He also studied opera singing with the baritone Ernesto Sivori.
Montale was largely self-taught. Growing up, his imagination was caught by several writers, including Dante Alighieri, and by the study of foreign languages (especially English), as well as the landscapes of the Levante ("Eastern") Liguria, where he spent holidays with his family.
During World War I, as a member of the Military Academy of Parma, Montale asked to be sent to the front. After brief war experience as an infantry officer in Vallarsa and the Puster Valley, he returned home in 1920.
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