Book picks similar to
Sonety krymskie by Adam Mickiewicz


poetry
polish
classics
polish-literature

Like Eating a Stone: Surviving the Past in Bosnia


Wojciech Tochman - 2002
    But it was months, even years, before the mass graves started to yield up their dead and the process of identification, burial, and mourning could begin. Here we travel through the ravaged postwar landscape in the company of a few survivors (mostly women) as they visit the scenes of their loss: a hall where victims' clothing is displayed; an underground cave littered with pale jumbles of bones; a camp for homeless refugees; a city now abandoned to the ghosts of painful memories; a funeral service where a family can finally say goodbye. These encounters are snapshots and memorials, a feat of powerful reportage told from the viewpoint of people who have lost nearly everything. With the sensibility of Philip Gourevitch or Ryszard Kapuscinski, Tochman captures a painful moment in history, as an entire community comes to terms with its raw and recent past.

Ghosts


Henrik Ibsen - 1881
    Ghosts is a scathing indictment of Victorian society in which Ibsen refutes the notion that if one simply fulfills one's duty rather than following one's desires then a good and noble life will be achieved. Scandalous in its day for its frank discussion of venereal disease and marriage infidelity, Ghosts remains to this day an intense psychological drama and sharp social criticism.Ghosts was written during the autumn of 1881 and was published in December of the same year. It was not performed in the theatre until May 1882, when a Danish touring company produced it in the Aurora Turner Hall in Chicago. Ibsen disliked the translator William Archer's use of the word 'Ghosts' as the play's title, whereas the Norwegian Gengangere would be more accurately translated as The Revenants, which literally means The Ones who Return.

Canti


Giacomo Leopardi - 1845
    A great classical scholar and patriot, he explored metaphysical loneliness in entirely original ways. Though he died young, his influence was enormous, and it is no exaggeration to say that all modern poetry, not only in Italian, derives in some way from his work.Leopardi's poetry is notoriously difficult to translate, and he has been less well known to English-language readers than his central significance for his own culture might suggest. Now Jonathan Galassi, whose translations of Eugenio Montale have been widely acclaimed, has produced a strong, fresh, direct version of this great poet that offers English-language readers a new approach to Leopardi. Galassi has contributed an informative introduction and notes that provide a sense of Leopardi's sources and ideas. This is an essential book for anyone who wants to understand the roots of modern lyric poetry.

The Georgics


Virgil
    A eulogy to Italy as the temperate land of perpetual spring, and a celebration of the values of rustic piety, The Georgics is probably the supreme achievement of Latin poetry.

The Romance of Tristan


Béroul
    Alan S. Fredrick summarizes missing episodes and includes a translation of 'The Tale of Tristan's Madness.'One of the earliest extant versions of the Tristan and Yseut story, Beroul's French manuscript of The Romance of Tristan dates back to the middle of the twelfth century. It recounts the legend of Tristan, nephew of King Mark of Cornwall, and the king's Irish wife Yseut, who fall passionately in love after mistakenly drinking a potion. Their illicit romance remains secret for many years, but the relentless suspicion of the king's barons and the fading effects of the magic draught eventually lead to tragedy for the lovers. While Beroul's work emphasizes the impulsive and often brutal behaviour of the characters, its sympathetic depiction of two people strug1150gling against their destiny is one of the most powerful versions of this enduringly popular legend.

Men and Women and Other Poems


Robert Browning - 1855
    In poems including 'Fra Lippo Lippi' and 'Bishop Blugram's Apology', Browning enters the personality and language of his characters, revelling in their unwitting self-revelation. Elsewhere Browning contemplates the relationships between love and the lyric, the poet and the painter, poetry and music.

100 Love Sonnets


Pablo Neruda - 1959
    The subject of that love is Matilde Urrutia de Neruda, Pablo's 'beloved wife'.

Notebook of a Return to the Native Land


Aimé Césaire - 1939
    The long poem was the beginning of Cesaire's quest for negritude, and it became an anthem of Blacks around the world. With its emphasis on unusual juxtapositions of object and metaphor, manipulation of language into puns and neologisms, and rhythm, Cesaire considered his style a "beneficial madness" that could "break into the forbidden" and reach the powerful and overlooked aspects of black culture. Clayton Eshleman and Annette Smith achieve a laudable adaptation of Cesaire's work to English by clarifying double meanings, stretching syntax, and finding equivalent English puns, all while remaining remarkably true to the French text. Their treatment of the poetry is marked with imagination, vigor, and accuracy that will clarify difficulties for those already familiar with French, and make the work accessible to those who are not. Andre Breton's introduction, A Great Black Poet, situates the text and provides a moving tribute to C saire. Notebook of a Return to the Native Land is recommended for readers in comparative literature, post-colonial literature, African American studies, poetry, modernism, and French.

Paradise Lost


John Milton - 1667
    It tells the story of the Fall of Man, a tale of immense drama and excitement, of rebellion and treachery, of innocence pitted against corruption, in which God and Satan fight a bitter battle for control of mankind's destiny. The struggle rages across three worlds - heaven, hell, and earth - as Satan and his band of rebel angels plot their revenge against God. At the center of the conflict are Adam and Eve, who are motivated by all too human temptations but whose ultimate downfall is unyielding love.Marked by Milton's characteristic erudition, Paradise Lost is a work epic both in scale and, notoriously, in ambition. For nearly 350 years, it has held generation upon generation of audiences in rapt attention, and its profound influence can be seen in almost every corner of Western culture.

Robert Frost's Poems


Robert Frost - 2002
    Here are "Birches," "Mending Wall," "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," "Two Tramps at Mudtime," "Choose Something Like a Star," and "The Gift Outright," which Frost read at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy." An essential addition to every home library, Robert Frost's Poems is a celebration of the New England countryside, Frost's appreciation of common folk, and his wonderful understanding of the human condition. These classic verses touch our hearts and leave behind a lasting impression.* Over 100 poems* All Frost's best known verses from throughout his life

The Complete Collected Poems


Maya Angelou - 1994
    For the first time, the complete collection of Maya Angelou's published poems-including "On the Pulse of Morning"-in a permanent collectible, handsome hardcover edition.

Miss Nobody


Tomek Tryzna - 1994
    It is here that she meets two streetwise girls, Kasia and Eva, who--each in her own way--begin to teach her the secrets of life. Marysia's drab life suddenly gains color, as she discovers not only the ostensible ways of the world, but also the subtler experiences of love, sex, desire, passion, and--finally, in the novel's breathtaking conclusion--betrayal. Combining elements of straightforward contemporary fiction, the metaphysical, fairytales, and the epic, richly layered styles of Dostoevsky, Flaubert, and Mann (to whom many international critics have compared him), Tomek Tryzna has made an astonishing literary debut.

Pride and Prejudice


Jane Austen - 1813
    Jane Austen called this brilliant work "her own darling child" and its vivacious heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print." The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen's radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower


Stephen Chbosky - 1999
    But there comes a time to seewhat it looks like from the dance floor.This haunting novel about the dilemma of passivity vs. passion marks the stunning debut of a provocative new voice in contemporary fiction: The Perks of Being A WALLFLOWERThis is the story of what it's like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie's letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating. We may not know where he lives. We may not know to whom he is writing. All we know is the world he shares. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it puts him on a strange course through uncharted territory. The world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends. The world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that the perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite.Through Charlie, Stephen Chbosky has created a deeply affecting coming-of-age story, a powerful novel that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller coaster days known as growing up.(back cover)

Selected Poems


W.H. Auden - 1958
    H. Auden’s Selected Poems adds twenty poems to the hundred in the original edition, broadening its focus to better reflect the enormous wealth of form, rhetoric, tone and content in Auden’s work. Newly included are such favorites as “Funeral Blues” and other works that represent Auden’s lighter, comic side, giving a fuller picture of the range of his genius. Also new are brief notes explaining references that may have become obscure to younger generations of readers and a revised introduction that draws on recent additions to knowledge about Auden.As in the original edition, the new Selected Poems makes available the preferred original versions of some thirty poems that Auden revised later in life, making it the best source for enjoying the many facets of Auden’s art in one volume.