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Two Poems for T. | Introduction

“Two Poems for T.” was written in Italian poet Cesare Pavese’s notebook in 1946 and not published until after his death. It is assumed that the T. of the title was a woman with whom “Pavese had an affair several months earlier. Although his diaries contain little about the person who scholars think was T., it is clear from the poem that she was going through a difficult period in her life and that the poet is trying to offer her some greater perspective. The poem itself provides an excellent example of the kind of advice a fatalistic intellectual poet might offer to a distraught young person. It also provides readers with a good example of Pavese’s technical skill.

Cesare Pavese is considered one of Italy’s greatest twentieth-century writers. He is celebrated for his novels more than his poetry, but he was prolific in almost every aspect of literature: fiction, poetry, essays, and translation. He is highly regarded for his Italian translations of American literature, including works by Hawthorne and Melville, which he penned during Italy’s fascist period, when the government tightly controlled what people could read. A generation of French intellectuals look to Pavese with a debt of gratitude for these translations, along with admiration for Pavese’s own creative works.

“Two Poems for T.” is available in the collection Disaffections: Complete Poems, 1930–1950, translated by Geoffrey Brock.

Two Poems for T. Summary

Lines 1–2
The first line of “Two Poems for T.” begins with an unusual perspective: the “you” of the poem, the mysterious person known as T., has been observed by the plants that grow in the lake. Readers assume T. has been swimming in the lake, since many lake plants are beneath the water’s surface. Using this unusual point of view, Pavese is able to accomplish two things at once. He is able to say something about the character of T., who is the type of person who would swim in a lake in the morning, while projecting his feelings about her onto nature, which, the poem implies, watched her with interest.

Lines 3–5
The natural setting of T.’s swim is further explained in these lines. It must be a rural setting, with goats around, and a difficult climate, since the poet mentions stones but not grass or trees or any other foliage. The sweat that is referred to in line 3 is presumably the sweat T. has generated through hard labor. It dissipates, just as the stones and goats are left behind, when she enters the lake, where the plants will continue observing her once she breaks the surface.

Having catalogued various elements that surround the lake, the poet tells readers in line 4 that these elements are timeless. There will always be goats there and stones and strenuous work. When Pavese says they “exist outside of days,” he is pointing out how irrelevant the measurement of time is to these things. Time is an idea that humans have created to give a context to a situation like this one, but the scene that is set here would exist even without human consciousness of it. Specifying “the water of the lake” in line 5 is important because the stones, goat, and sweat are all part of T.’s difficult life, but the water that surrounds her, taking her in and cleansing her of the others, is also there forever.

Lines 6–7
“Pain and clamor” refer to events the poem does not specify, but which are related in mood to the stones, sweat, and goats. They are strong words, indicating that the person called T. has suffered recently. Drawing attention to the lake’s unchanging character, its unawareness of human trauma, restates the point that the poet has already made about nature being too large to take note of human concerns.

Lines 8–9
The parallel structure of these two lines turns “morning” and “anguish” into related concepts. Usually morning has positive associations, implying hope and the start of a new day. By relating it to anguish, the poem turns expectations upside down. There is also an ominous implication that early anguish is just the start of things to come, like morning is the start of a new day. The poem’s speaker reassures the reader the thing that unites anguish and morning is not that they both are beginnings, but that they both pass... » Complete Two Poems for T. Summary