Summary
Highlights
The lyrical poem "Non recidere, forbice, quel volto" was written in November 1937 and is part of Eugenio Montale's collection "Le Occasioni", specifically in the 'Mottetti' section. The video provides an overview of Montale's work, encouraging viewers to watch a separate video lesson about his life and works if they haven't already. 'Mottetti' refers to a short poetic composition, typically with a moral or proverb.
The poem consists of quatrains of hendecasyllables and septenaries with irregular rhymes. A significant imperfect rhyme is highlighted where the last verse of the first quatrain rhymes with the last verse of the second quatrain, both ending in 'novembre' (November).
The presenter reads the poem "Non recidere, forbice, quel volto" and provides a detailed paraphrase. The poem implores a scythe (interpreted as memory or time) not to cut off the image of a woman's face from memory, even as the cold of forgetting descends. The image of a wounded cicada shell falling in the November mud is used to symbolize the fading memory.
The analysis delves into Montale's use of 'correlativo oggettivo' (objective correlative), a technique previously discussed in an earlier video. Various rhetorical figures are identified, including apostrophe ('forbice'), personification (of the scissor and a wounded branch), metaphors ('mia nebbia di sempre', 'freddo cala'), synesthesia ('viso in ascolto'), and paronomasia ('recidere forbice', 'caccia cicala').
Montale himself provides hints for the interpretation, suggesting that the 'forbice' (scissor) represents the act of cutting away, and the 'nebbia di quel viso' (fog of that face) signifies its destruction. The beloved face is seen as grand in memory, occupying it entirely, even if blurred by the fog of remembrance. The scissor is equated with time, and pruning with oblivion, symbolizing the time that erases memories.
According to critics, the face is that of Irma Brandeis, Montale's lover and a Dante scholar, who later became 'Clizia' in his poetry. Clizia is portrayed as an absent, angelic woman, linked to the sunflower. The face also represents memory in general, a cherished moment in the poet's heart. The invading 'cold' symbolizes death, the impending loss of memories and personal affections, akin to the pruning shears or the Fates cutting the thread of life.
The final image of the wounded branch shedding the cicada shell into the 'belletta' (mud, mire) of November rain further reinforces the theme of decay and loss. The cicada shell represents the poet's emptied state, his soul laid bare, like a stripped branch. The word 'belletta' is intentionally chosen by Montale, echoing Dante's Inferno (Canto VII) and D'Annunzio's 'Alcyone', adding a layer of literary allusion to the sense of desolation.