But poets were not considered dangerous and they were advised to exercise self-censorship. At most, poets were requested not to write at all. I took advantage of this negative liberty.
Eugenio MontaleRead
For my part, if I consider poetry as an object, I maintain that it is born of the necessity of adding a vocal sound (speech) to the hammering of the first tribal music.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Poetry emerges as a blend of music and speech, rooted in primal human expression.
Eugenio Montale suggests that poetry is an essential form of artistic expression, deeply connected to music and the rhythmic patterns that echo our earliest forms of communication. He emphasizes that the evolution of poetry is an extension of music, highlighting how vocal sounds have been interwoven into human cultural expressions from ancient times.
Themes
PoetryMusicExpressionArtCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
During a poetry reading, one might introduce this quote to discuss the relationship between music and poetry.
More from Eugenio Montale
All quotes →There is poetry even in prose, in all the great prose which is not merely utilitarian or didactic: there exist poets who write in prose or at least in more or less apparent prose; millions of poets write verses which have no connection with poetry.
Eugenio MontaleRead
Mass communication, radio, and especially television, have attempted, not without success, to annihilate every possibility of solitude and reflection.
Eugenio MontaleRead
It has often been observed that the repercussion of poetic language on prose language can be considered a decisive cut of a whip.
Eugenio MontaleRead
I have always knocked at the door of that wonderful and terrible enigma which is life.
Eugenio MontaleRead
Man cannot produce a single work without the assistance of the slow, assiduous, corrosive worm of thought.
Eugenio MontaleRead
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Most people do not believe in anything very much and our greatest poetry is given to us by those who do.
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...and the lamp having at last resigned itself to death. There was nothing now but firelight in the room, And every time a flame uttered a gasp for breath It flushed her amber skin with the blood of its bloom.
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