[New-Poetry] Montale on content, time, art and poetry

[James Cervantes]

Individuality is, of course, an illusion.  Think of the basis on which
we differentiate individuals.  Content?

- Jim

On 9/6/07, JforJames at aol.com <JforJames at aol.com> wrote:
>
>
> There is still an art which tries to escape from time but nevertheless bears
> the characteristics of our epoch and consequently supplies far from ignoble
> material for intellectual entertainment. Yet the potential material of art,
> the content of art is diminishing just as the difference between individuals
> is diminishing.
>
> Our epoch has destroyed art by scrutinizing its nature. It has made art into
> a copy of something which exists in ourselves and has no need of expression,
> of "works". Wherever we look we see a rush towards imitation and anonymity,
> and it would be absurd to expect that when the collective block has reached
> its grade of maximum solidarity the very idea of an individual art, or of
> any sort of art, should seem anything other than outrageous.
>
> What remains irrefutable is the presence of a universal protest which is not
> aimed at any particular political or social regime but at our unnatural way
> of living.
>
> And poetry, which is generally ahead of its time, may go so far ahead as to
> seem behind in time.
>
> --Eugenio Montale, Poet In Our Time, translated by Alastair Hamilton, Marion
> Boyars 1976, 42-43
>
>
>
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