Author: [Italian] Eugenio Montale
Publisher: East China Normal University Press
Publisher: 99 Scholars
p>Translator: Lu Tongliu/Liu Ruting
Year of publication: 2017-1
Number of pages: 424
Price: 60.00
Binding: Hardcover
Book Series: The Poems of the Tower of Babel
ISBN: 9787567555235
This is my favorite poet. I wish I could read his poetry in Italian.
——Mayakovsky
Introduction
I often encounter
the invasion of evil in life:
It is like a stream with its throat choked
Weeping secretly,
Like the withered, yellow and shriveled leaves under the scorching sun,
< p>It's like a bird that has received a fatal blowand is dying.
I know no other salvation
Apart from sober indifference:
It is like a statue
Sleeping at noon,
A white cloud
hangs in the clear blue sky,
A big eagle
soars leisurely in the sky.
——Montale "The Evil of Life"
Eugenio Montale (1896-1981), Italian poet. Born in Genoa, he loved music and literature since childhood. He began writing poetry when he was twenty years old. In 1925, he published his first collection of poems, "Squid Bones", which caused a sensation in the Italian poetry world and became a representative work of "hermit" poetry. In 1938, he was in a difficult situation because he refused to join the Fascist Party, but he still engaged in translation and writing. After World War II, he created a lot and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975. Montale died in Milan on September 12, 1981, and the Italian government held a grand state funeral for him.
One of the most influential poetry schools in Italy and the West in the first half of the 20th century. It emerged after World War I and reached its peak in the 1930s. The poetic theory and creation of the Hermit School were influenced by French Symbolism.
It is based on subjective idealism and advocates that artists avoid harsh reality and escape into the world of personal emotions. Its subject matter mainly describes fragments of natural scenes, expresses people's momentary feelings, fantasies and subtle emotions hidden in the heart, and expresses the loneliness, melancholy and evil of life.
In art, the Hermitists avoid realism and focus on unrestrained imagination, using unique metaphors and images to establish artistic images and express the poet's complex subjective feelings.
Most of the poems of the Hermit School are free-style, pay attention to rhythm, pursue the musicality of poetry, emphasize that the sound of words has more power to express subjective feelings than the meaning of words, and strive to explore the emotional color contained in words, and Abandon its ordinary, everyday meaning.
The hermit poets avoid fierce social and political struggles, indulge in the world of personal feelings, and regard the abstract evils of life beyond the times as the source of all disasters, which actually dilute or cover up social contradictions. essence. Sometimes, the pessimistic and sad color is more intense.
At the same time, the Hermitism also reflected the unique, sharp and complex social contradictions in Italy after the First World War in a tortuous way. It contradicts the literature that praises capitalism and fascist rule, and expresses the dissatisfaction of the Italian petty bourgeoisie with social reality, especially the depression, disappointment, and hesitation of the fascist dictatorship and its ideology that they are unwilling to obey but unable to resist. , therefore it has certain ideological significance and cognitive value.
In the 1940s, under the influence of the anti-fascist resistance movement launched by the people, some hermit poets either directly participated in the resistance movement, or clearly expressed the themes of anti-fascism and patriotism in their poems. , began to touch on the themes of social real life.
The hermit poets sought innovation in art, expanded the expression methods of poetry, and were good at depicting the spiritual world of characters delicately and carefully tempered, which had a certain influence on subsequent poetry creation. However, because they often deliberately pursue feelings and images, some poems play word games, are empty in content, and are mostly obscure.
His unique poetry creation illustrates the value of human beings with great artistic sensitivity and life insight that excludes fallacies and illusions. ——Award Speech
At the same time, Hermitism also tortuously reflects the unique, sharp and complex social contradictions in Italy after the First World War. It contradicts the literature that praises capitalism and fascist rule, and expresses the dissatisfaction of the Italian petty bourgeoisie with social reality, especially the depression, disappointment, and hesitation of the fascist dictatorship and its ideology that they are unwilling to obey but unable to resist. , therefore it has certain ideological significance and cognitive value. Perhaps this book won the award mainly because of the ideological significance brought by this point.