Combining the study of both music and art in the early poetry exploration of Eugenio Montale (1896-1982), this book puts the first poet in Italy in the twentieth century in the modernist movement. Gian Paolo Biazin finds Montal's poetry wide, echoes, and comparisons in European culture in her age and calls for reading poetry, music, and drawing as texts in a cultural system.

This multidisciplinary approach extends our appreciation of Montal's work in a way that is not possible with literary analysis alone. The Biasin study first shows the structural homogeneity between some of Debussy's introductions to the piano and some poems in Ossi di seppia in Montale, focusing on the rhythmic qualities of compositions.

This formal analysis leads to an understanding of the thematic, symbolic, and cultural meaning of each - specifically, as an alternative to life. A similar methodology is then used to reveal the relationship between the poetry of Montale and Giorgio Morandi and the engraving and personal character Montale, Arsenio, and characters Svevo and Pirandello.

Each of these comparisons highlights a common image, from clown (or antihero) as a self-mocking portrait of the modern artist. Originally published in 1989.

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