Poetry
A Bouquet of Czech Folktales
Kytice z pověstí národních
Karel Jaromír Erben · 1853
Synopsis
Ballads born of popular beliefs, opened by a title poem about the dead mother who lives again as a flower: a fiancée who has prayed to see her betrothed again, fallen in war, sees a horseman return in the night; a mother irritated by her child calls upon the noon demon; a young girl goes down to the lake despite her mother's warning. Each tale turns on a fault and the punishment it calls down.
Context
Written half before the collection, the oldest in 1834, the others in 1851 and 1852, the ballads appeared together in Prague in 1853 from Jaroslav Pospíšil, without illustrations, twelve in number; the second edition, in 1861, added Lilie and a section of songs. The only original book by its author, the collection is composed as a mirror around Rouet d'or. Antonín Dvořák drew four symphonic poems from it in 1896, and F. A. Brabec made a film of it. In French, Xavier Galmiche translated it in a bilingual edition in 2001, then again in 2020.
Who it is for
Thirteen rhymed ballads in the definitive edition, twelve in the first; short, in a compact language, and almost always tragic.
Prizes and reception
A major work of Czech Romanticism, read in schools for generations; the film Brabec made from it received four Czech Lions.