Poetry · A way to begin
The Seasons
Metai
Kristijonas Donelaitis · 1765
Synopsis
Four songs, the joys of spring, the labours of summer, the goods of autumn and the cares of winter, follow a year in a Lithuanian village in East Prussia. The serf peasants plough, harvest, celebrate and quarrel, under masters from elsewhere whom the poem paints with a satirical touch. The poet contrasts the good, hardworking and pious, with the bad, often interrupts the narrative with lessons and lyrical reflections, and describes nature in the villagers' own words.
Context
The poem was written between the 1760s and 1775 by the pastor of Tolminkiemis and remained in manuscript. In 1818, Ludwig Rhesa published it in Königsberg, in an incomplete edition, with his own German translation; he chose the order of the four parts and their common title. Its 2,997 hexameters, a metre that no one had yet used in Lithuanian, and its unvarnished depiction of serfdom make it a text apart. The first French translation appeared in 2018.
Who it is for
A long poem in hexameters, very concrete; it has existed in French since 2018, from Classiques Garnier, in a translation by Caroline Paliulis and Nijolė Vaičiulėnaitė-Kašelionienė.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the first great poem of Lithuanian literature and the masterpiece of its beginnings; translated into many languages.
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