Eugenio Montale “Fuori di casa” in France

Montale the Journalist: The Central Role of France

Only in the late 1940s, after his move to Milan as a correspondent for Il Corriere della Sera, Eugenio Montale began to explore France, a country he had known and loved for years through his readings. In Fuori di casa (Away from Home), a collection published in 1969 by Riccardo Ricciardi, the French section (the sixth) is the longest and most extensive: twelve out of twenty articles are dedicated to Paris, and eight focus on the "province" which Montale visited between 1950 and 1955.

While his Paris writings focus on intellectual encounters, it is in his portrayal of the varied regional life that environmental, linguistic, and cultural reflections take greater prominence. His first trip to France as a Corriere correspondent occurred in August 1950. Montale arrived in Strasbourg to cover the work of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe. In early September, he left Alsace for Brittany. In June 1954, he visited Provence, and in August of the following year, he returned to northern France, this time to Normandy. 

In examining the poet traveller's perspective on the French provinces, it is possible to detect common threads in his observations of the Rhineland, Brittany, and Normandy. These themes are more fully articulated in his depictions of Provence, elaborated in four of the eight regional essays. Despite being drawn to cities and small cultural centres, often retracing the paths of French writers, Montale consistently sought contact with natural beauty. Stylistically, his prose frequently employs analogy (Taffon, 1990), linking the human and animal worlds and attributing zoomorphic traits to nature.

Through continuous associations, the French landscape evokes, by contrast or continuity, the Italian one. The itineraries Montale proposes deliberately avoid the routes of mass tourism (already crowding seaside resorts in the 1950s) and are enriched with literary and artistic references, along with sharp reflections into regional languages (such as Breton and Provençal). Gastronomic observations are not lacking either, often delivered with irony, a characteristic feature of Montale's narrative style.

Montale in Alsace, Brittany, and Normandy

Storie naturali (Natural Stories), the prose that opens the French section of Fuori di casa, begins with describing storks, whose "detainment" in Strasbourg's zoo becomes the pretext for an ecological reflection. The progressive extinction of the species in Alsace is, according to Montale, to be attributed to the construction of dams through which the Rhine, 'muzzling' the tributaries running alongside it like 'panting dogs,' has become too navigable and too restless for the 'surly' storks. In Dinard and Saint-Malo, the free seabirds (wrens, cormorants, and warblers) that still dominate the vast Breton beaches accompany the poet during his visit to Chateaubriand's modest grave, gifting him one of the most authentic moments of his stay in France.

A different experience awaited him at Mont-Saint-Michel, which Montale and the Hachette guide he consulted (Monmarché, 1948) still considered part of Brittany. The location, likened to a "new Capri" for its terrain and streets filled with shops and restaurants, is described during high tide when the adverse effects of mass tourism become most visible. Crammed into narrow boats, visitors are ferried to the mainland by "Caronti di servizio". The Dantean reference and the term "great rescue" (which gives the essay its title) for a very short crossing reveal the poet's irony and sarcasm. In his guidebook, Montale jotted down that the experience at Mont-Saint-Michel was ultimately a "great rip-off".

In 1955, five years later, Montale again travels to Normandy. Here, too, he often highlights, sometimes with irony and sometimes with bitterness, the effects of urbanization on the natural landscape, though he also expresses surprise and admiration for the region's rich culture. The Normandy itinerary is denser with literary references: the thick fog of Sainte-Adresse recalls Maupassant; the Graville Abbey on the outskirts of Le Havre evokes French Symbolist poetry; and the Abbey of Saint-Wandrille in Rives-en-Seine, a Norman architectural gem, brings to his mind Maurice Maeterlinck.

Montale particularly appreciates Honfleur, a seaside town along the côte fleurie, which, despite being overrun by tourists like Ascona and Capri, appears much the same as it was when Baudelaire arrived and wrote his Invitation au voyage.

Cabourg, evocative of Proust, is noted ironically by the poet as a place where one would be unlikely to spot any Albertine "playing the devil" in the park. The issue of cultural heritage being underappreciated emerges most strongly in his description of Dieppe, whose coastline has been irreparably transformed to meet the needs of luxury tourism (Contu, 2013) at the expense of sites like the palace and tomb of Jean Argo and the town's impressive castle yet rarely visited.

Montale's disappointment deepens in Rouen, the birthplace of Flaubert. The great writer's home has been demolished by the municipality, leaving only a small, modest (though interesting) study visited by a few tourists, mostly Italians.

In Normandy, as in Brittany, the sight of the sea brings comfort. On the cliffs of Étretat and Octeville-sur-Mer, Montale again encounters cormorants but also hawks and seagulls, his only desired company in the solitary contemplation of the landscape.

Montale in Southern France: A Special Relationship with Provence

Between his first journey to Alsace and Brittany and his third to Normandy, Montale visited Provence in May–June 1954. Deeply interested in the Provençal language and literature, the poet arrived during the centennial celebrations of Félibrige. In southern France, Montale explored the inland areas, visited cities of art (Aix and Avignon), and especially admired the unspoiled landscape of the Camargue. In Châteauneuf-de-Gadagne in Vaucluse, he took part in the celebrations of Félibrige and its founders, first among them Frédéric Mistral. To understand this great Provençal writer, honoured with statues and monuments in many local town squares, Montale recommends visiting his house museum in Maillane. Further south, in the Alpilles region, the village of Les Baux-de-Provence captivated him. Perched on a hill, it overlooks a cliff reminiscent of Dante's Inferno. This charming, still little-touristed village is ironically proposed as a destination for a romantic honeymoon, an alternative to over-touristed Capri and Mont-Saint-Michel.

Avignon, the cultural heart of Vaucluse, is described by Montale as a city that "would deserve a lifetime". Yet he suggests it can be explored in a day: the Papal Palace, museums, churches, and the plaque commemorating poet Louis Le Cardonnel. Highly recommended is a trip to the source of the Sorgue River with a copy of Petrarch's poems in hand. Montale is more critical of Aix-en-Provence. Walking along the picturesque Cours Mirabeau, he bitterly notes that the city, home to a faculty of humanities, a music festival, and the newly founded Comédie de Provence, pays little importance to its artists (especially André Masson and Paul Cézanne) and its actors, who are already sidelined by centralized cultural policies.

The Camargue, which in some ways recalls Tuscany's Maremma, with its primaeval nature and age-old traditions, fully meets Montale's expectations. In a single day, departing from Arles and passing through Saint-Gilles and the fortified town of Aigues-Mortes, crossing the Grau-du-Roi canal, Montale reaches Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, where he is fascinated by the gypsy rituals he witnesses in the dark chapel dedicated to the saints. At the mas (a traditional Provençal farmhouse) of the wealthy and famous Monsieur Ricard, an autonomous microcosm complete with school, church, and sports field, he encounters wild horses and bulls, alongside ducks, beavers and plovers that make up the diverse fauna of the Vaccarès pond. The mas, places of worship, small towns, and their traditions all seem harmoniously integrated into the landscape.

Although some places in Brittany and Normandy also captivated him, it is only in Provence, in Camargue, and in what he sees as a more respectful coexistence between humans and nature that Montale finds the France he had been seeking.

How to cite this entry: Tedeschi, S. (2025). Eugenio Montale “Fuori di casa” in France. In R. Baleiro, G. Capecchi & J. Arcos-Pumarola (Eds.), E-Dictionary of Literary Tourism. University for Foreigners of Perugia. https://doi.org/10.34623/zdg2-hn59