Synopses & Reviews
Review
"'All my poetry,' Montale once said, 'is a waiting for a the miracle.' That miracle began with the extraordinary voice that speaks in his first book, Ossi di sepia, published in 1925 when Montale was 29: an authentic, anti-heroic voice that would compel recognition of Montale as the great modern Italian poet and lead to the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975. . . . New readers of Montale will appreciate the critical introduction to his oeuvre, with detailed notes including exegeses of the seminal poems, and Arrowsmith's masterful and subtle translation. But critical apparatus is only a pleasing adjunct: these poems stand powerfully on their own and reach straight to the reader." Publishers Weekly
Review
"The splendid and vigorous originality of Montale's poems have found in William Arrowsmith a profoundly sympathetic, greatly learned, faithful and imaginative translator; and this bilingual volume, Cuttlefish Bones with its notes and commentaries, is richly helpful and a deep delight." Anthony Hecht
Synopsis
"Virtually incomparable. . . . [Arrowsmith] has quite literally distilled this poetry's essence in order to recompose it with all of its colors, scents, and exquisitely understated potency intact." --Rebecca West
About the Author
Eugenio Montale (1896-1981) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975.William Arrowsmith was a renowned translator and classics scholar.