This article explores Vittorio Sereni’s attitude towards the literary legacy of d’Annunzio, as expressed in particular in the poem “La poesia è una passione?”, in which Sereni explicitly quotes some lines from d’Annunzio’s Novilunio and appears to refer to a long, and apparently somewhat arduous, process of distancing himself from d’Annunzio’s cumbersome legacy in his early development as a poet. The main point that we try to make is that Sereni’s departure from d’Annunzio and the Liberty style is prompted not so much by a radical shift in poetic sensibility, but rather by a recognition that the world, and the social reality, have changed, and therefore require a renewal of the means of poetic expression. This is contrasted with the poetry of Montale, arguably the most influential Italian poet in the second half of the 20th century: we make the case that Montale’s innovation, decisively influenced by the English-language modernism, is much more radical, and involves not just an updating of the poetic language, but a more fundamental and theoretical renewal of the very idea of poetry and literature and of what they stand for.