[An Indian-born educator, critic, and poet, Singh has translated several selections of poems by Montale and is the author of Eugenio Montale: A Critical Study of His Poetry, Prose, and Criticism (1973). Other book-length studies by Singh focus on A. C. Swinburne, Giacomo Leopardi, Ezra Pound, and T. S. Eliot. In the following excerpt, he assesses the style and tone of the poems in Diario del '71 e del '72.]

The first part of Montale's fifth book of poems, Diario del '71, appeared in a private, limited edition of 100 copies, published by Vanni Scheiwiller, Milan, 1971. To this has now been added Diario del '72 to form a new book [Diario del '71 e del '72] (The fourth book Satura came out in 1971; see Glauco Cambon, "The New Montale," in Books Abroad, 45:4). There are about 90 poems, most of them are short, some of them even epigrammatic.

There are two distinct strains running through this book: the lyric strain and the ironic-satirical strain. The two sometimes merge with each other; at other times they don't so much exclude as dominate one another. One can divide the book into two groups of poems—one where the lyric strain prevails and the other where the ironic strain does. As to the poems written in the predominantly lyrical key, they, for the most part, belong to the Xenia group, both by virtue of the inspiration behind them and their technique, diction and the realistic-evocative manner of narration or discourse. Such poems are "L'arte povera," "a C," "I nascondigli," "II Pirla" and "II lago di Annecy" (Diario del '71); and "Ancora ad Annecy," "Annetta," "Diamantina," "Sorapis, 40 anni fa" and "Al mio grillo" (Diario del '72).

In "L'arte povera" ("Poor Art"), while recounting the various materials he used in painting—blue sugar bags or wrapping paper, and "wine and coffee for the colors / and smears of toothpaste if the background was / a tassled sea"—the poet suddenly turns to the woman loved who is no more, with an emotionally subdued yet morally pregnant constatation:

È la parte di me che riesce a sopravvivere
del nulla ch'era in me, del tutto ch'eri
tu, inconsapevole.

(This is all that has managed to survive
of the nothing that was in me and
of everything that you were without knowing it.)

In "I nascondigli" ("Hiding Places"), some of the objects that belong to the world of Xenia and even earlier poems, and that, for all their triviality, have an emotionally charged association in the poet's mind, return: "my wife's little wooden dog, her brother's / obituary, three or four / pairs of her glasses, the cork / of a bottle that long ago / struck her on the forehead at the New Year's / cotillon at Sils Maria" and have "formed a conspiracy to sustain" the poet after his wife's death. In "Ancora ad Annecy" ("Still at Annecy"), revisiting this lake in France after his wife's death, the poet does not—deliberately, as it were—recall "the stately abode that sheltered you / before the coastguards' house was built, / almost like a cliff, in memory." But the very fact of recalling the coastguards' house (in the poem "La casa dei doganieri") in preference to the stately abode of an earlier period is itself a poetically effective way of linking two important episodes from the past which have become one, each adding to the evocative poignancy and richness of the other. And if in his recollection today, especially now that the object of love is dead, the poet considers youth to be "the most ridiculous season in life" ("Annetta"), it is not only his way of vindicating what is no more or of resuscitating someone who was "a genius of pure inexistence" but also of re-living in the only way possible what was once something ineffably sweet and poignant: "something so poignant that / it almost made me bleed."

It is, however, in "Sorapis, 40 anni fa" ("Sorapis, 40 Years Ago") that the distinction between age and youth is completely annulled, annulled by the absorbing recollection of fully realized love. But such a feeling is by its very nature inextricably linked with the nature of what is being experienced on a given occasion, while it is being experienced:

Poi ti guidai tenendoti per mano
fino alla cima, una capanna vuota.
Fu quello il nostro lago, poche spanne d'acqua,
due vite troppo giovani per essere vecchie,
e troppo vecchie per sentirsi giovani.

Scoprimmo allora che cos'è l'età,
Non ha nulla a che fare col tempo, è un miracolo
che ci fa dire siamo qui, è un miracolo
che non si può ripetere. Al confronto
la gioventù è il più vile degl'inganni.

(And then I led you by the hand
to the summit, to an empty hut.
That was our lake, a few spans
of water, two lives too young
to be old, and too old to feel
themselves young. It was then that we
discovered what age means; it
has nothing to do with time,
it is something which makes us say
we are here, a miracle that
cannot be repeated. By contrast
youth is the vilest of all illusions.)

The other and more numerous poems in Diario del '71 e '72, on the other hand, are inspired by the poet's moral, philosophical and metaphysical reflections as well as by his pregnantly witty and sarcastic comments on the various aspects of the Zeitgeist. Montale's verbal and conceptual inventiveness is to be seen at its best in these cerebral or neo-metaphysical poems, parodies and epigrams. At times wit and irony are directed by the poet at himself, but most of the time at others and at the ethos, values or nonvalues, myths and illusions of contemporary civilization. In such poems, therefore, the poet, the moralist and the journalist join hands and what comes out is something impressively new, at least in Italian poetry. In "A Leone Traverso," Montale's literary friend and a distinguished translator, the poet says how, like Traverso, he too dreamt of being one day "mestre de gay saber," but it was a vain hope: "A dried up laurel / doesn't put forth leaves even for the roast." In "La mia musa" ("My Muse") Montale compares his muse to "a scarecrow standing precariously / on a checker-board of vines":

Un giorno fu riempita
di me e ne andò fiera. Ora ha ancora una manica
e con quella dirige un suo quaretto
di cannucce. È la sola musica che sopporto.

(One day it was filled with me and went away
proudly. Now it still has a sleeve
with which it directs its quartet of straws.
It's the only music I can bear.)

In "II terrore di esistere" ("The Terror of Existing") the poet's summing up of his life's possessions—he who in "Mia vita a te non chiedo lineamenti" (Ossi di seppia) had said he didn't need "lineamenti / fissi, volti plausibili o possessi"—is both witty and characteristic of the tone, inflexion and ethos of a great many poems in this book.

Nell'anno settantacinquesimo e più della mia vita
sono disceso nei miei ipogei e il deposito
era là intatto. Vorrei spargerlo a piene mani
in questi sanguinosi giorni di carnevale.

(In the seventy-fifth year or so of my life
I've gone down to look into the safe
and find that the deposit is intact.
I would like to scatter it freely
in these bloody days of the carnival.)

The note of self-irony turns, at times into self-denigration as in the poem "King-fisher," with its subtle, moral and symbolic undertones.

Praticammo con curo il carpe diem,
tentammo di acciuffare chi avesse pelo o escrescenze,
gettammo l'amo senza che vi abboccasse
tinca o barbo (e di trote non si parli).
Ora siamo al rovescio e qui restiamo attenti
se sia mai una lenza che ci agganci.
Ma il Pescatore nicchia perchè la nostra polpa
anche al cartoccio o in carpione non trova più clienti.

(We practiced carefully carpe diem;
tried to catch whoever had skin
or excrescences, cast the hook
without tench or barbel, (not to mention
trout) biting at the hook.
Now the situation is reversed and we
are anxiously waiting for a line to catch us.
But the Fisherman shilly-shallies because
even in a paper-bag or as a picked carp
our pulp no longer attracts clients.)

Thus, although in an altogether different mode and key, the poet's quest for self-identity, self-exploration and selfdifferentiation—differentiation, for instance, from what he calls "the swarm of automatons called life" ("Sono pronto ripeto, ma pronto a che?")—which started with Ossi di seppia, continues. But both the language, the imagery and the rhythmic suppleness have acquired a new verve and a new impetus, partly due to Montale's having achieved to the full the kind of maturity, stoicism or divine indifference which he had outlined in Ossi di seppia and which makes him feel, more than ever before, that in "the restless round of life / honey and absinth have the same taste." And now, having lived most of his life, the poet finds that he is still "uncertain as to the rules of combat":

Non era tanto facile abitare
nel cavallo di Troia.
Vi si era così stretti da sembrare
acciughe in salamoia.
Poi gli altri sono usciti, io restai dentro,
incerto sulle regole del combattimento,

(It wasn't so easy to live
in the horse of Troy.
They were so congested inside
as to seem like sardines. Then
the others stepped out but I
stayed in, uncertain as to the rules of combat.)

And the book closes with a characteristic poem "Finis" which is still another example of Montalian wit, understatement and irony all rolled into one:

Raccomando ai miei posteri
(se ne saranno) in sede letteraria,
il che resta improbabile di fare
un bel falò di tutto che riguardi
la mia vita, i miei fatti, i miei nonfatti.
Non sono un Leopardi, lascio poco da ardere
ed è già troppo vivere in percentuale.
Vissi al cinque per cento, non aumentate
la dose. Troppo spesso invece piove
sul bagnato.

(I charge posterity [if I have
any, which is rather improbable],
on the literary plane, to make
a big bonfire of all that concerns me—
my life, my experiences, my non-experiences—
I'm no Leopardi,
I leave little behind me to be burnt
and it's already too much to live
in percentages. I for my part
lived five per cent; don't augment
the dose. It often rains
on what's already wet.)