Eraldo Bellini

SUMMARY: This essay traces the influence of Montale on Calvino’s work. An explicit aim at imitating Montale marks already Calvino’s early and still insecure poetic attempts. In the same way, themes and symbols of Montale’s "Ossi di seppia" and "Occasioni" appear in works such as "Sentiero dei nidi di ragno" as well as in Calvino’s short stories ("Racconti"), and more generally in his works of the Fifties and Sixties. Moreover, Calvino considered Montale an exemplary writer, able to affirm the highest moral and civil values during the fascist period and who, in the post-World War II period, defended his ’creative loneliness’ with respect to the futile communication rituals of modern mass culture.