Guido Monte

Guido Monte
Born 1962
Occupation writer, poet
Nationality Italian
Period 2000–present
Genre Poetry

Guido Monte (born 1962) is an Italian writer and poet. In his recent works, he employs linguistic blending in the search for meaningful and archetypal relations between distant cultures.[1] His works and translations have been published by international magazines (as Words Without Borders,[2] Swans Commentary, and Ars Interpres). On his blending experiments, he uses also Japanese,[3] Sanskrit,[4] Sheng[5] and languages of ethnic groups in Kenya.

Poetry and linguistic blending

On the way of Jorge Luis Borges, Ezra Pound's Cantos and T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Monte thinks that "…if we admit that some archetypal ideas are common among our planet inhabitants, then we can state, in the sense meant by Borges, that just one "Book" has been written, as an evidence of the original and permanent cultural unity of the world and it contains all the chaotic fragments ever thought and written by people searching for the deep truth of things…".[6] Different languages can be approached and mixed "to transmit something that apparently is far in space and time" (on what was defined as a meta-communicative way[7]). On this thinking, a blending author can "compose" poems and works without using his own verses, but only other poets' lines (and sometimes this is Monte's peculiarity), remembering every time, in the beginning, the names of the authors. On another experiment, in fact, Monte puts together, in a common archetypal idea, lines of Virgil, Dante and Blake.[8] If Monte translates, for instance, the first verses of Genesis or any other holy texts in two or three languages, "…we realize that the new and different sounds, irrespective of our linguistic knowledge, suggest new, universal, cosmic vibrations that the original version didn't succeed in transmitting. In any case they reveal the complexity of reading different levels": In principio diviserunt Elohim / coelum et terram / and the land was left barren / et les ombres noires / enveloppaient les profondeurs / bade korgolòdei dar ruie / oghionusoh parmisad / et aura divina / super oceani undas (Genesis, Words Without Borders, 2004)[9]

Alison Phipps, expert in Intercultural Studies, defines this form of blending as an embroidering gossamer.[10]
In his latest experiments, on Swans Commentary, the visual coloured arrangement of verses (one colour for each one of the poem's selected authors) is important in conveying the intended effect of his multilingual works.[11]

The French writer Orlando de Rudder,[12] thinks that Monte's attempts are the beginning of a new "synthèse" des langues, a form of Babel Library where all the world poets live together, syncretistically, common universal feelings.[13] The Italian writer Claudio Magris thinks that this kind of poetry is definable as meticciato organico (organic blending).[14]

Selected bibliography

Translations

See also

References

  1. ↑ Monte's bio on Segue, mid.muohio.edu of Miami University Middletown
  2. ↑ Monte on Words Without Borders. WWB is the magazine of Alane Salierno Mason, translator of Elio Vittorini.
  3. ↑ Dapur Vetur, on Happa no kofu
  4. ↑ Journey n.6... on Swans Commentary
  5. ↑ written on my sanbenito, on Swans Commentary
  6. ↑ Cosmopolitan multilingualism, on Happa no kofu
  7. ↑ Francesca Saieva, Linguistic Blending. A Way... Swans.com
  8. ↑ Origines, on Segue
  9. ↑ Monte on Words Without Borders
  10. ↑ Swans commentary, sept.2008. Alison Phipps (Professor of Languages and Intercultural Studies at the University of Glasgow) about it: “It is good to think with others about how languages find their way into the cracks and crevices of our lives – how they create a gossamer of relatedness which always has an unpredictable feel and future”. (A.Phipps on Swans Commentary, 2008). About her collaboration in eSharp project, see "Views from the bridge: publishing as a voyage of discovery", SOJEL, june 2007.
  11. ↑ About Monte and his new blending approach, the French translator Marie Rennard said :"...sa démarche demande à être expliquée, la " résonnance cosmique " qu'il évoque peut faire sourire au prime abord, et pourtant, à le lire, à le relire, on sent naître cette communion des verbes de toutes langues, et sans être forcément à même de saisir toute l'ampleur d'une démarche qui, selon son propre aveu, le dépasse lui-même, on éprouve le plaisir profond que font naître les véritables poètes à l'oreille d'en dedans, pur bonheur, mere happiness, autentica felicità". (Langues et mixité, Introduction de Marie Rennard))
  12. ↑ de Rudder teaches Medieval Literature and History of French Language at the Ecole Superieure de Commerce of Paris, (see bibliopoche.com and terascia.com)
  13. ↑ comment on de Rudder's blog
  14. ↑ swans.com, 25 avril 2011; about Monte's blending, see also the opinion of Magris on In Koj (University of Milan, p.208
  15. ↑ Article on ricerca.repubblica.it

External links

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