May [Hardcover]

Karel Hynek Macha (Author), Jindrich Styrsky (Illustrator), Marcela Sulak (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2005

Often compared to Byron, Keats, Shelley, and Poe, Mácha was the greatest Czech Romantic poet, and the most influential. May, his epic masterpiece, was published in April 1836, just seven months before his death. Considered the pearl of Czech poetry, it is a tale of seduction, revenge, and patricide. As a paean to his homeland, Czechs can recite the first stanzas of the poem from memory, and new editions still regularly appear in Czech bookstores. The poem’s popularity and longevity lie in its music and innovative use of language. Mácha’s work has been largely ignored in English translation but this volume, the sole to exist in English, provides

* the original Czech text in parallel

* an introduction by Craig Cravens, Chair of Czech Studies at the University of Texas

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

This seems to be the first English version in more than 50 years of the greatest poem by the premier romantic poet of the Czech language. Macha (1810-36) published his masterpiece at his own expense shortly before he died, probably of cholera. Mostly in tetrameters, with expansive sections in longer lines, the poem pioneered iambs in Czech, in which dactyls and trochees work more easily, and is famously melodious. It is prefaced by a rather crude patriotic paean that is Macha's acknowledgment of his era's call for patriotism in Czech literature, which he otherwise ignores in favor of international romanticism. The poem portrays a young woman pining for her lover condemned to death, his last hours and execution, nature's lament for him, and the poet's recollection of the lovers'legend. Byron, or Keats, well could have written it, and if translator Sulak declines to slavishly render its rhymes (observable on left-hand pages in this bilingual edition), she convincingly echoes its meters and movingly conveys its various beauties. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Karel Hynek Macha (1810 - 1836) was born in Prague, studied law at Prague University and modeled himself after Byron, with whom he shared a romantic idealism.

Marcela Sulak has a Ph.D. in Poetics from the U. of Texas. Her own poetry has been published widely and received a number of awards, including a First Prize from the Academy of American Poets.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 121 pages
• Publisher: Twisted Spoon Press (January 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 808626422X
• ISBN-13: 978-8086264226
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,176,810 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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