EUGENIO MONTALE - LEADING POET OF ITALY; AT 84
Author: Associated Press
Date: Monday, September 14, 1981
Page: ?????
Section: RUN OF PAPER OBITUARY
Reclusive Nobel laureate Eugenio Montale, considered the leading Italian poet
of the 20th century, died of a heart ailment Saturday at Milan's San Pio X
Hospital, the clinic said. He was 84.
Sig. Montale had been hospitalized since early August.
A generation of Italians grew up with the verses of Sig. Montale, who
wrote often of the sea lapping at the shores of his native Genoa. He described
loneliness in some of his poems as an unavoidable human condition.
He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1975 - the fifth Italian to
receive the literature prize. A shy man, he displayed little enthusiasm after
winning it. Sig. Montale agreed to go to Sweden to receive the Nobel prize,
but refused to participate in any other festivities, even for his birthdays.
"Such celebrations are useless, without sense," he liked to say.
After the award he wrote other poems, always writing by hand, and usually
puffing on a cigarette. But he emphasized that the writing was more for
himself than for others.
Sig. Montale lived in an old apartment with his longtime governess a few
miles from Milan's Cathedral square and the La Scala opera house. He once
confessed that one of his secret dreams was to sing professionally as a
baritone.
His work was honored worldwide, but practically nothing was known about
the poet himself. Few visitors were allowed into his Milanese home.
Sig. Montale gained nationwide fame as a young man from poems published in
1925 under the title, "Cuttlefish Bones."
Born Oct. 12, 1896 in the northeast Italian port of Genoa, Sig. Montale
later spent years in the inland cities of Florence, Milan and Turin, where he
experienced his first literary success after living through the horrors of
World War I. As a struggling artist, Sig. Montale had to work as a translator
and reporter to support himself.
His funeral was scheduled for today in Milan, where Italy's President
Sandro Pertini and Premier Giovanni Spadolini were expected to attend services
at the Roman Catholic cathedral. Sources said Sig. Montale would be buried in
Florence beside his wife, Drusilla, who died in 1963.
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