Montale in English

Book excerpt: A remarkable gathering of poets who have taken on the complexities of Montale's poetry in that always "impossible" task of carrying the music and meaning of verse from one language to another. Editor Harry Thomas's analysis of different translations of "Verso Vienna" is nothing short of stunning: it gives us a window onto the infinite challenges, choices, and intuitions that make up the task of the translator. The versions of poems that span Montale's entire production, rendered into English by well-known and lesser-known English, Scottish, American, Australian, and Italian poets turned translators, provide genuine access to one of the great voices of modernism, while giving us a renewed sense of the beauties of the English language. An admirable volume to be savored over and over by all lovers of poetry. --Rebecca West.