"for his distinctive poetry which, with great artistic sensitivity, has interpreted human values under the sign of an outlook on life with no illusions"
The 1975 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Italian poet Eugenio Montale (1896–1981) "for his distinctive poetry which, with great artistic sensitivity, has interpreted human values under the sign of an outlook on life with no illusions".[1] He is the fifth Italian laureate for the literature prize.
Along with Giuseppe Ungaretti and Salvatore Quasimodo, Eugenio Montale is associated with the poetic school of hermeticsm, the Italian variant of the French symbolism movement, although Montale himself did not consider himself to be part of the hermetic school. His poetry is often compared to T. S. Eliot. When the Swedish Academy awarded him with the Nobel Prize in 1975, they called him “one of the most important poets of the contemporary West”.[2] His notable oeuvres include Ossi di seppia ("Cuttlefish Bones", 1925), Le occasioni ("The Occasions", 1939), La bufera e altro ("The Storm and Other Things", 1956), Satura (1962–1970) (1971) and Diario del '71 e del '72 (1973).[3]
Reactions
According to the Associated Press, Montale said that award had overwhelmed him and made his life, "which was always unhappy, less unhappy."[3]
In Italy, the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Montale was positively received. Their Prime Minister, Aldo Moro, congratulated him, said that the award "consecrates the validity of your poetical and human message, and, in you, honors the Italian culture,"[3] and President Giovanni Leone commented that his work's contained "tormented and lucid singling‐out of the anxieties and the aspirations of modern man."[3]
Award ceremony
At the award ceremony on 10 December 1975, Anders Österling of the Swedish Academy said:
"at his best Montale, with strict discipline, has attained a refined artistry, at once personal and objective, in which every word fills its place as precisely as the glass cube in a coloured mosaic. The linguistic laconicism cannot be carried any further; every trace of embellishment and jingle has been cleared away. When, for instance, in the remarkable portrait-poem of the Jewes Dora Markus, he wants to indicate the current background of time, he does so in five words: Distilla veleno una fede feroce (“A fierce faith distils poison”). In such masterpieces both the fateful perspective and the ingeniously concentrated structure are reminiscent of T.S. Eliot and “The Waste Land”, but Montale is unlikely to have received impulses from this quarter and his development has, if anything, followed a parallel path"[4]
Nobel lecture
Eugenio Montale delivered his Nobel lecture on 12 December 1975. Entitled "Is Poetry Still Possible?", he spoke about the art of poetry and poetry's place in the modern world of mass communication.[5]
Deliberations
Nominations
Montale was first nominated for the prize in 1955 by Nobel laureate T. S. Eliot. It was followed in 1961 and afterwards became a regular nominee until 1975. He received 29 nominations in total before he was eventually awarded.[6]
Temporal list of nominees and their nominators for the prize[7]
^Official list of nominees and nominators will be revealed on first week of January 2026. Currently, the list includes those purported to have been shortlisted and nominated according to new agencies.
