[Despite his English affinity], Montale still belongs to the continental European tradition. Since the 19th century, French, Italian, German, and Spanish poetry has tolerated a much higher degree of difficulty, of "hermeticism" than has English or American poetry. To the extent that Eliot was influenced by the French Symbolists he was labeled "obscure."… Also, continental philosophy, very much at odds with the English empirical tradition, has had a continuous influence on the poetry written in those countries—and the influence is often reciprocal…. The result is that the metaphysical or dialectical concerns of a good deal of continental poetry, including Montale's, are apt to strike English readers as misplaced, forced, even unreal.

Montale was never altogether a "hermetic" poet, certainly not in his first book. The poems in Ossi di seppia (Cuttlefish Bones), published in 1925, decipher fairly easily. Many of the poems are taken up with description, sometimes...