Dramatic Works

Perhaps some day Ill disappear forever muses the master-builder Psymmachus in Cyprian Kamil Norwids Cleopatra and Caesar Becoming one with my work... Today exactly two hundred years from the poets birth it is difficult not to hear Norwid speaking through the lips of his character. The greatest poet of the second phase of Polish Romanticism Norwid like Gerard Manley Hopkins in England created a new poetic idiom so ahead of his time that he virtually disappeared from the artistic consciousness of his homeland until his triumphant rediscovery in the twentieth century. Chiefly lauded for his lyric poetry Norwid also created a corpus of dramatic works astonishing in their breadth from the Shakespearean Cleopatra and Caesar cited above through the mystical dramas Wanda and Krakus the Unknown Prince both of which foretell the monumental style of Stanislaw Wyspiański whom Norwid influenced and drawing-room comedies such as Pure Love at the Sea Baths and The Ring of the Grande Dame which combine great satirical humour with a philosophical depth that can only be compared to the later plays of T.S. Eliot. All of these works and more are collected in Charles S. Kraszewskis English translation of Norwids Dramatic Works which along with the major plays also includes selections from Norwids short lyrical dramatic sketches - something along the order of Pushkins Little Tragedies. Cyprian Kamil Norwids Dramatic Works will be a valuable addition to the library of anyone who loves Polish Literature Romanticism or theatre in general.Translated from the Polish and introduced by Charles S. Kraszewski.This book has been published with the support of the (c)POLAND Translation Program.Publishers Maxim Hodak & Max Mendor.