Xenia

by Eugenio Montale

In its literary impact, Montale's Xenia, published in 1966 in an edition of just 50 copies, might be described as Italy's The Waste Land. This now-famous sequence came in profound response to the death, in 1963, of his beloved wife whom he nicknamed Mosca, a woman so short-sighted as to have reputedly apologised when bumping into a mirror. At the end of the Xenia sequence, Montale allegorises the story of his Florentine ark of precious artefacts overwhelmed in the 1966 flood of the Arno. Those objects resurface in the poem as a metaphor for a loss that is as personal as it is historical. Montale's personal past with Mosca has been submerged, but also Europe's high literary culture. This exciting new translation is launched in October 2016 to coincide with two the 50th anniversary of Xenia's 1966 private (and first) edition in Italian, and the 120th anniversary of Montale's birth.

Genres: Poetry, Nobel Prize, Italian Literature

86 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1977

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

[Carmen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vorrei poterlo abbracciare, giuro..