Eugenio Montale’s Loose Endecasillabi

The great majority of lines in Eugenio Montale’s published work are written in recognizable metres, mostly hendecasyllables. There are, however, approximately 300 lines that are slightly longer than the hendecasyllable, yet shorter than other known metres, typically counting 13 metrical syllables. These lines have traditionally been referred to as ‘tridecasyllables’, or ‘hypermetrical hendecasyllables’, simply acknowledging their length. This article, after a review of the literature and of the structural features of the tridecasyllable, and on the basis of a scansion of all such lines, argues that they can be given a definite description by adopting the formalism known as Bracketed Grid Theory. Thus, this article develops an account of these forms, including both 13- and 12-syllable lines, and explains both their structural features and their similarities with the dodecasyllable and, most importantly, the hendecasyllable.