Introduction: The Developl\Ilent Of ‘I’He Inexpressiblli’I’Y Topos In European Literature

Abstract Then Eugenio Montale, in his review of. Joyce’s Dublin, wrote that ‘ii sense detail composition e in quell fringier di parole non date’, he was drawing attention to the unsaid in literature, hinting that some firm of truth is harbored beyond the word.1 It is a concern that echoes across his writing, finding its clearest articulation, perhaps, in the poem ‘So lore in cui’ (La  bodega  e  alto) where he affirms that ‘la piuveraragione di chit ace’. Here Montale challenges the power of language, his primary medium of expression, to reveal truth, and his as section raises a number of important theoretical questions.