IL PASSERO SOLITARIO DI MONTALE: UN MERLO AZZURRO E UN FILO ROSSO

Starting from a verse from the Psalms and one of Petrarca’s sonnets, the figure of the lonely sparrow was reclaimed by many poets, who sometimes transform it into an example of pained solitude and other times into a champion of melodic song or, more rarely, an expression of the joy of life. The poem by Giacomo Leopardi, rightly famous for its beauty and depth, casts a shadow on all the works that came before it. Leopardi, who partially identifies with the lonely sparrow, imposes the stamp of his style upon its image, and as a consequence the later poets will rarely dare to contend with that subject. Montale returns to the image of the sparrow, in prose and in verse, but does not identify expressly with it, although he shows a measured empathy. In his prose works he criticises the commentators who have mistaken the protago- nist of Leopardi’s poem for a common sparrow, a bird characterised by its modest chirping and friendly nature, whereas it is in fact a bird of a different species, the blue rock thrush or monticola solitarius, fond of isolation and gifted with a melodious song, which reminds him of an aria from Manon Lescaut by Jules Massenet. Furthermore, Montale mentions the lonely sparrow in various poems, written from 1945 to nearly his death. In these verses the Ligurian poet reflects, among other things, on the wake that animals leave behind in the human spirit and especially on the remorse he feels having killed a lonely sparrow in his youth, during his summer stays in Cinque Terre.