Poetry
Zakliata panna vo Váhu a divný Janko
Not translated into English
Janko Kráľ · 1844
Synopsis
The poem opens on a double frame: a first-person voice tells of its wandering, its weariness and its visions, in which memories of pastoral and family scenes suddenly turn upside down, then the hero lays his head on a stone and falls asleep. Then comes the story of Janko, the “odd one”, solitary and proud, who celebrates neither Sunday nor Ascension. In the waters of the Váh, the most mystical of Slovak rivers, a bewitched girl waits to be delivered.
Context
Written in 1844, the year from which the author wrote only in Slovak, the ballad is held by literary history to be the emblematic poem of Slovak romanticism. According to Ľubica Somolayová, it marks the transition between the epic ballads based on popular tales and those centred on the lyrical and reflective; its tragic hero owes nothing to enemies and everything to his solitude. For the Literárne informačné centrum, the young girl imprisoned by the river figures the homeland. John Minahane translated into English a selection of the author's poems, published in 2022.
Who it is for
A ballad of a few pages, in the language of 1844, for those who like river legends and Romantic poets.
Prizes and reception
Its author's best-known play, to which he returns several times in his later poems.
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