Abstract

This essay analyses Eugenio Montale's famous auto-exegetic article, Due sciacalli al guinzaglio (1950): it identifies its unknown source (i.e. the opportunity), it illustrates its peculiarities (among which, the wideness, the textual autonomy, the narrative frame) and its implications in the relation to criticism and scholars (Contini, Gargiulo, Solmi). At last, it shows the stimulating func¬tion and the fascination that the recently published Umberto Saba's Storia e cronistoria del «Canzoniere» (1948) have produced on this Montale.