The paper deals with the analysis of the rhetorical morphology and of the semantic functions of various emersions of ‘aposiopesis’ (or ‘reticence’) in The Occasions (1939) by Eugenio Montale, poetic collection characterized by an important ‘silence strategy’ (“to omit the occasion-spur”). The theory and the praxis of the non-said and the non-finite efficaciously outline, between inventio and dispositio, an original and coherent definition and explanation of some recurring stylistic patterns of Montale's poetry. Moreover, the critical recognition allows to clarify the essential role of the rhetorical use of silence and “textual scars” in the lyrical creation of negative or positive epiphanies and, more generally, in the poetic construction of memory, transfiguration and meaning.

The paper deals with the analysis of the rhetorical morphology and of the semantic functions of various emersions of ‘aposiopesis’ (or ‘reticence’) in The Occasions (1939) by Eugenio Montale, poetic collection characterized by an important ‘silence strategy’ (“to omit the occasion-spur”). The theory and the praxis of the non-said and the non-finite efficaciously outline, between inventio and disposition an original and coherent definition and explanation of some recurring stylistic patterns of Montale’s poetry. Moreover, the critical recognition allows to clarify the essential role of the rhetorical use of silence and “textual scars” in the lyrical creation of negative or positive epiphanies and, more generally, in the poetic construction of memory, transfiguration and meaning.