SOURCE: "Wit, Understatement, and Irony: Montale's Sixth Book of Poems," in Books Abroad, Vol. 47, No. 3, Summer, 1973, pp. 507-10.

An Indian-born educator, critic, and poet, Singh has translated several selections of poems by Montale and is the author of Eugenio Montale: A Critical Study of His Poetry, Prose, and Criticism (1973). Other book-length studies by Singh focus on A. C. Swinburne, Giacomo Leopardi, Ezra Pound, and T. S. Eliot. In the following excerpt, he assesses the style and tone of the poems in Diario del '71 e del '72.

The first part of Montale's fifth book of poems, Diario del '71, appeared in a private, limited edition of 100 copies, published by Vanni Scheiwiller, Milan, 1971. To this has now been added Diario del '72 to form a new book [Diario del '71 e del '72] (The fourth book Satura came out in 1971; see Glauco Cambon, "The New Montale," in Books Abroad...