ABSTRACT

The dialogue with a female tu represents perhaps the most persistent and deeply rooted figurative device employed by Eugenio Montale. It is, among other things, one of the main vehicles through which he expresses his ideological positions, and the changing identities and attributes of his interlocutors reflect also his changing relationship with historical realities. The tu, in the form of Gaetano Mosca, no longer brings salvation in from without by way of miraculous epiphanies. Maria Corti, writing on Saturn in 1971 is quick to point out the clear 'distacco' between the collection and its predecessors. Arletta, is the poetic transfiguration of a young girl, Anna degli Uberti, whose family rented the villa beside that of Montale's family in Monterosso for several years around 1920. Before considering the Clizia cycle and its historical and ideological implications, brief mention must be made of the enigmatic, tormented figures of Gerti, Dora Markus and Liuba, who appear in the first section of Le occasioni.