Le Enumerazioni di Montale

Resum

The author studies the literary figure of enumeration in the first three collections of poems by Montale (Ossi di seppia, 1925; Occasioni, 1939; La bufera e altro, 1956) in an attempt to examine the motifs in them, ranging from the depiction of landscapes and surroundings (in the first collection) to the preparation for the ?moment of grace? in the form of the appearance of Clizia, the female protagonist of Occasioni and part of La Bufera. When, in the third collection, these motifs, which are at once thematic and existential, start to be less prominent, the enumeration tends to become ?chaotic?: the constituents have no semantic or symbolic motivation capable of maintaining cohesion because they no longer convey any meaning. In this context, if realism was first used as a vehicle for symbolism, and therefore articulated homogeneously, now it only expresses its own meaning, a fragment or remnant of a memory that is random and ?minimalist?, and thus attached to other objects, with which it has only an indirect link.