Laments

By Jan Kochanowski and Dorothea Prall

Book Overview

This Book "Laments" has been considered important throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and designed. These books are not made of scanned copies of their original work and hence the text is clear and readable.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9356579660
• ISBN13: 9789356579668
• Release Date: September 2022
• Publisher: Alpha Edition
• Length: 30 Pages
• Weight: 0.13 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Silently Powerful

Without knowing some of the history of this work, "Laments" may seem merely a touching remembrance of the poet's daughter, whom he lost when she was only 3 years old. However, the poetic style that Kochanowski employs was reserved for those of fame and fortune, and it was considered socially unacceptable to write such a thing for a young child. Ironically, the poems still exist to this day for us to enjoy and Seamus Heaney, known for his own poetry and the recent translation of Beowulf, has rendered Kochanowski's verses in stark, simple language that conveys the rhythm, rhyme, and gravity of the poet's profound grief. Now, Seamus Heaney's translations have always created mixed feelings in me. On one hand, Heaney is excellent at making poems seem human and not like transcendent works of words that must be studied and analyzed to be followed. On the other hand, Heaney puts much of himself into his translations and adds a presence of Irish colloquialism into the work (particularly in Beowulf). In this work, along with the aid of Stanislaw Baranczak, Heaney perfects the style that I've always known him to be capable of. The bilingual aspect will also make this edition indispensable to scholars and those attempting to learn the Polish language (and, hell, even those who can read both languages and want to compared the two(, All in all, a vital piece of Renaissance poetry.

The Messenger

I discovered this collection in a Slavic Literature class where it was required. I was deeply touched by these words of a father in mourning for his daughter; feelings expressed in the 16th Century that translate as if they were written today. Last week I was discussing Polish literature with a Holocaust survivor. When I mentioned Kochanowski's "Treny" (Laments), she got tears in her eyes and gasped- how did I know Kochanowski? She quoted a phrase in Polish, then said she always thinks about "Treny" when she thinks of her mother- it was her favorite- who was killed in Auschwitz. Today, when I gave her my bilingual copy, she held it to her heart. I could hear her heart crying when she said "thank you." Words of a daughter in mourning - and a human connection spanning four centuries.