Poetry
Pan Tadeusz
Pan Tadeusz, czyli ostatni zajazd na Litwie
Adam Mickiewicz · 1834
Synopsis
In 1811, in Lithuania annexed by Russia, the young Tadeusz Soplica returns from his studies to the manor of Soplicowo, to his uncle the judge. In the garden he glimpses a young girl, Zosia, whom he soon mistakes for the coquettish Telimena. The judge and the count, heir of the Horeszkos, quarrel over the ruins of an old castle, a dispute fuelled by Gerwazy, an old servant of the Horeszkos, while a mendicant monk, Father Robak, secretly urges the nobility to prepare for the coming of Napoleon.
Context
Written in Paris in 1833 and 1834, during the author's exile, the poem appeared on 28 June 1834 from Aleksander Jełowicki, in twelve books of thirteen-syllable verse. The action takes place over five days in 1811 and two in 1812. Translated into English as early as 1885, it has had in French the versions of Venceslas Gasztowtt around 1899, of Paul Cazin and of Roger Legras; Bill Johnston's English translation, in 2018, received the American national prize for poetry in translation. Andrzej Wajda brought it to the screen.
Who it is for
A long poem in twelve books, in which the scenes of hunting, feasting and quarrels take up as much room as the plot. Several French translations.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the Polish national epic and the central work of the country's canon; Polish schoolchildren learn its invocation by heart.
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