Negation

Abstract Figurative language is a powerfi1] tool for expression in Montage’s poetry, but even the evident care with which he selects metaphors, similes, and other tropes cannot conceal his underlying distrust of the expressive capacities of his medium. Following his realization of the unattainability of a total language, he resigns himself to the ‘elegiac’ and the ‘start syllabi’ which later evolve into the ‘balbuzie’ and the ‘mezzo parlor’ of Saturn. Such an abdication of belief is illustrative of his deep-seated distrust in the ability of language to express reality. Although critics such as Carbon and Jacuzzi have tended to emphasize the role of negative modes of expression in the later Montale, negation has an important, if less conspicuous, part to play in the earlier poetry, with de-attribution, contradiction (including paradoxes and oxymora), and the via  negative all instrumental in the bringing into language of the inexpressible.