What is Montale's concept of 'il male di vivere'?
The 'evil of living' is not some grand philosophical pronouncement but a felt condition, a pervasive unease. It is the palpable weight of existence, the awareness of the inevitable decay that touches everything, from a cracked wall to a withered branch. It is the suffering that arises not from specific injustices, but from the very texture of being, the absence of inherent meaning or divine solace. My poems often begin with such stark, concrete observations, trying to give voice to this fundamental disharmony, this lack of easy answers in a world that offers only contradictions.
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