The Mediterranean landscape of Montale's native Liguria was a strong presence in these early poems: they gave him a sort of "personal seclusion" in the face of the depressing events around him. These poems emphasise his personal solitude and empathy with "little" and "insignificant" things, or with the horizon, the sea. According to Montale, nature is "rough, scanty, dazzling". In a world filled with defeat and despair, nature alone seemed to possess dignity – the same as the reader experiences in reading his poems.