Poetry
Orfėjaus medis
Not translated into English
Alfonsas Nyka-Niliūnas · 1953
Synopsis
The Tree of Orpheus: the poet speaks in it once more of his native house and landscape, of childhood memories, and of a world of dream and imagination nourished by poetry and art. Dark and luminous tones answer one another: the sequence of the destroyed house is counterbalanced by the night of liberation and by joyful funerals, which open onto a universe of fantasy. Pages of prose are interspersed among the verses, and the titles range from an Inferno to an Embarkation for Cythera and to elegies.
Context
The collection appeared in 1953 and went into a second edition the following year. Viktorija Skrupskelytė places it between the author's first book, from 1946, more melancholy and darker, and the next, from 1957, which she regards as the summit of his work; she sees in it a stage in a search for truth, notes the subtle balance of its tones, which shuns extreme positions, and contrasts it with romantic lyricism, which states feelings directly. Exile and the loss of home remain at the heart of this poetry.
Who it is for
Lyrical and meditative poems, rich in references to European painting and literature; no French or English translation of the collection has been found.
Prizes and reception
A stage in the work of a poet of exile whose diary, published in Lithuania from 1998, became his most widely read book.
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