Montale, the Modernist explores the historical contingencies and the scientific andphilosophical ideas that influenced the composition of Montale¿s poetry, offeringnew readings of, among others, ¿Non chiederci la parola¿, ¿Arsenio¿, ¿L¿alluvione¿ and¿Dialogo¿. Framing Montale alongside such figures as Eliot, Pound, Svevo, Larbaudand Joyce, the book explores the celebrated peculiarities of his poems as modernistinnovations, allowing a comprehensive understanding of Montale¿s role in thelyrical canon of the twentieth century. To recognize Montale¿s role as a preeminentmodernist author also challenges our understanding of modernism itself, not justbecause it underscores the relationship and the philosophical proximity betweenCatholic and literary modernism, but because it reorients literary modernism as atruly pan-European movement, originating and distancing itself from the modes ofSymbolism after the historic shock of World War I. Considering the arc of Montale¿slong poetic trajectory, this book traces his evolution from Symbolist to modernist(in ¿Ossi di seppia¿), high modernist (Le occasioni, La bufera e altro), and finally to apostmodern thinker in the late works (Satura, Diario del ¿71 e del ¿72).