Poetry
Plumb
Not translated into English
George Bacovia · 1916
Synopsis
The poem that opens the collection and gives it its title, two quatrains in which the word recurs six times, descends into a vault: coffins, flowers and wreaths of lead, a sleeping love of lead, wings of lead. The other poems take up the same motifs, autumn, rain, a park, the cemetery, an oppressive provincial town, and recurring colours, grey, yellow, black, violet. According to Lidia Lupașcu, everything in it speaks of suffocation and the impossibility of escape.
Context
The volume appeared in Bucharest in July 1916, and a second edition followed in 1924 in Râmnicu Sărat. The title poem had appeared in 1911 under a pseudonym, according to Cristina Nicolaescu, and the author had read it at Alexandru Macedonski's literary circle, in 1903 according to TVR, which adds that the book received the Ministry of Arts prize in 1923. Eugen Lovinescu spoke of a Bacovian atmosphere of desolation, and Nicolae Mecu sees in the author a symbolist who became a forerunner of modern Romanian poetry.
Who it is for
Short poems with repeated motifs, in Romanian; translated into French under the title Plomb, in 1998 and again in 2012.
Prizes and reception
For Cristina Nicolaescu, the collection brought Romanian symbolism lasting recognition.
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