Poetry
Biķeris
Not translated into English
Edvarts Virza · 1907
Opening lines
No manis pasaule visa tik tālu,
Viss grimis kā neziņā sapiņu skauts;
Sūc plaukstošo ziedu smaržu nakts kāri,
Dreb viļņodams mēneša sarkanais auts.
The whole world is so far from me,
All has sunk, as if wrapped in dreams, into unknowing;
The night greedily drinks the scent of blossoming flowers,
The moon's red veil trembles, rippling.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from archive.org
Synopsis
Poems of desire, among them Nakts dziesma and Zelta mati, written in the manner of the Symbolists and carried by a straightforward joy of living. The title, the cup, symbolically designates a woman's lap, and the book speaks of the body and of amorous impulse with a frankness that Latvian poetry had not yet known, and which caused a scandal when it appeared.
Context
It is its author's first collection, published in 1907. The critics reproached it for its emptiness and nakedness, which they read as those of the young poet; at the education committee of the Riga Latvian Society, some proposed buying up all the copies to destroy them, others objected that this would be giving it publicity, and the book was branded pornography. A newspaper of 1909 was still warning its readers. The scholar Anda Kubuliņa sees in it the only Latvian decadent work that can be discussed as art, because these verses remain alive where others ring false.
Who it is for
Short, sensual poems in a Symbolist manner. It is worth knowing that their author's work was banned for half a century.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as a striking example of Latvian symbolism and as the first erotic poetry in Latvian literature.
Sources for this page 2
The pages consulted to check this page.