Poetry
Vade-mecum
Not translated into English
Cyprian Norwid · 1953
Opening lines
Klaskaniem mając obrzękłe prawice,
Znudzony pieśnią, lud wołał o czyny;
Wzdychały jeszcze dorodne wawrzyny,
Konary swemi wietrząc błyskawice —
Their right hands swollen from clapping,
Weary of song, the people cried out for deeds;
The comely laurels still were sighing,
Scenting lightning with their boughs;
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from pl.wikisource.org
Synopsis
One hundred poems, written for the most part between the late 1840s and 1866, which the author arranged into a single cycle in which each piece answers the one before. In it he puts into practice the renewal he calls for in Polish poetry: he challenges the Romantic legacy, questions art, history and the poet's place in society, and meditates on the dilemmas of existence, from Verona to Chopin's piano.
Context
The author arranged the collection between July 1865 and the spring of 1866 for the second volume of his Poésies with Brockhaus, in Leipzig; the publisher withdrew and the manuscript remained unpublished. Kept by relatives, acquired in 1898 by Zenon Przesmycki, who published almost all of it in fragments from 1901 to 1933, it survived the destruction of Warsaw. Wacław Borowy produced a facsimile in 1947; the first edition of the text appeared in 1953 in Tunbridge Wells, from the Oficyna Poetów i Malarzy, before the editions of Juliusz Wiktor Gomulicki and Józef Fert.
Who it is for
One hundred short poems, with an elliptical and often obscure syntax; an annotated edition helps in following them. Complete French translation in 2004.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as its author's most important collection and as a masterpiece of Polish poetry.
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