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Eugenio Montale (1896–1981) was one of the most important Italian poets of the 20th century. Amongst his most famous collections are Ossi di Seppia/ Cuttlefish Bones (1925), Gli Occasioni/ The Occasions (1939) and La bufera e altro/The Storm and other things (1956). He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1975. Linked to the rough, bare landscape of his native Liguria, His poetry  expresses a profound feeling of disillusionment and ‘il male di vivere’ (the evil of life). Although his poetry was considered difficult and obscure, by some critics, he contributed greatly to the revival of Italian poetry in terms of both language and prosody and is considered one of the greatest Italian poets after Giacomo Leopardi.

In his later works, Montale’s poetry changed in terms of both prosody and themes; a disenchanted wisdom pervades the lines together with an understated tone. The most famous poems of…