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Simpatico 285other poetic discourses, other poetic subjects, challenging any facilereduction of the text to autobiography (whether the poet’s or thereader’s).Montale is undoubtedly much easier for Anglo-Americanmainstream poetics to kidnap than experimentalism. In fact, it couldbe said that some English-language translators are responding to thetraces of another poet-oriented aesthetic in Montale,“crepuscolarismo,” a fin de sièclemovement (“crepuscolare” means“twilight”) that cultivated a private voice in conversational language,producing introspective, slightly ironic musings on prosaicexperiences (Sanguineti 1963). This would go some way towardexplaining not only Gioia’s effacement of Montale’s modernism, butthe recent American fascination with younger Italian poets who seemto be returning to crepuscularism—Valerio Magrelli (1957–), forinstance, whom Gioia has also championed and translated (Cherchiand Parisi 1989).Of course, not all of Montale’s English-language translators put towork an assimilationist ideology. William Arrowsmith’s versions weredesigned precisely to respect the modernist edge of poems likeMottetti. In the “Translator’s Preface” to The Occasions, Arrowsmithdescribed his method as “resisting” any domestication of the Italiantexts:I have conscientiously resisted the translator’s temptation tofill in or otherwise modify Montale’s constant ellipses, toaccommodate my reader by providing smoother transitions.And I have done my best to honor Montale’s reticence, hisironic qualifications, and evaded cadences. A chief aim hasbeen to preserve the openness of the poet’s Italian, eventhough this has meant resisting the genius of English forconcreteness.(Montale 1987:xxi)Arrowsmith’s intention, however, was to validate, not revaluate,Montale’s canonical status in Anglo-American poetry translation, andso there was no need for him to mention the postwar Italianexperimentalism, let alone suggest that it was worth translating intoEnglish. Indeed, he believed thatNo Italian poet of the twentieth century has taken greaterexperimental risks than Montale in this book, above all in the effort