“A first reading of Pavese’s verses immediately gives us the image of a limit that he has tried to force, in the ample periphrasis with which he replaces the precise word. It, therefore, appears to be a blatant criticism of the lyrical essentialism of the past years, and, perhaps, the ambitions of a founder of a school on the opposing bank.

“I don’t believe things are that simple: the limit, against which Pavese tests his strength, is not so much the surrounding environment, but he himself, among other things, that is to say, the fear of going beyond the precise focus of poetry and, in a way, finding himself simply working on his own reflection. His approach to poetry, terribly bold in appearance, is, therefore, in reality terribly cautious.” Sergio Antonielli, Belfagor 2, 1950.

The poem Lo steddazzu was written in Calabria in 1935. It is the last poem Pavese wrote during his one-year confinement in Brancaleone Calabro and closes the collection Lavorare stanca. The title of the poem, Lo steddazzu, refers to the morning star, (steddazzu means large star and refers to Venus, the green star, in the Calabrese dialect). In the poem, Pavese describes the monotony and loneliness of life. A sense of melancholy dominates the poem as dawn approaches and the last greenish star, which witnesses and participates in the poet’s listlessness, dies among the misty mountains covered in cold snow.

The poem is composed of three stanzas: two of nine lines and one of seven. Interestingly, it is the last, shortest stanza which is the most important of the three. In choosing to make it shorter, the poet calls our attention to the fact that something is lacking not only there, but in life, his life, which would end in suicide in 1950 at only 42 years of age.

Of the poetic devices used by the poet, we find alliteration (sommesso sciaquìo), assonance (perfino la pipa tra I denti) and consonance (le stelle vacillano), synesthesia (notturno è il sommesso sciaquìo), oxymoron, (mare […] avvampante) and personification: the sea breathes; the star sees. The poet also makes use of anaphora and periphrasis to mark important themes: solitude (the repetition of “the lone man”), monotony (the repetition of “nothing can / will occur”), desperation (“Does it make sense for the sun to rise from the sea / and for the long day to begin?)

It may seem that translating a poem that does not rhyme is easier; unfortunately that is not true. We weigh each and every word and where our own fluency does not suffice, we turn to monolingual dictionaries and dig through the pages looking for hues that we, as non mother tongues, might miss. We follow the poet like faithful hounds, ever at their heels: obsolete word for obsolete solution, formal for formal, informal for informal. Then we read it through and start all over again, dictionaries begging us to stop…And still, the translation never seems to be exactly what we imagined. – M.C.

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