May
Description
Often compared to Byron, Keats, Shelley, and Poe, called Lautreamont's elder brother by the Czech Surrealists, Karel Hynek Macha (1810-1836) was the greatest Czech Romantic poet, and arguably the most influential of any poet in the language. 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. A paean as well to nature, the beauty of its music and its innovative use of language, expertly captured in this new translation by Marcela Sulak, has ensured the poem's lasting popularity. Scorned at first by the national revivalists of the 19th century for being un-Czech, Macha was held up as a national poet by later generations, a fate which the interwar Czech avant-garde, who considered him a precursor, took it upon themselves to reverse.Unlike other seminal 19th-century European poets, Macha's work has been largely ignored in English translation. The present volume provides the original Czech text in parallel and includes a series of illustrations by Jindřich Styrský specifically created for the poem.
Product Details
Price
$20.00
Publisher
Twisted Spoon Press
Publish Date
November 15, 2005
Pages
121
Dimensions
6.06 X 7.52 X 0.61 inches | 0.01 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9788086264226
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About the Author
Karel Hynek Macha was born on November 16, 1810 in an old part of Prague where his father was the foreman at one of the city's mills. At school he learned Latin and German, the two languages approved by the Hapsburg authorities, and later studied law at Prague University. His great model was Byron, with whom he shared a romantic idealism, wandering the Bohemian countryside to visit castle ruins, always making sketches and notes describing the natural beauty surrounding him. Influenced by the Czech intellectuals who were trying to revive the language at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Macha wrote May and many of his poems in Czech (though his early writing was in German, the compulsory language of his education). In this way he identified himself with the Byronic hero who gives his life to a cause. Macha died of pneumonia on November 5, 1836 just shy of his 26th birthday.
Jindřich Styrský (1899-1942) was a painter, poet, editor, photographer, and collagist. His outstanding and varied oeuvre included numerous book covers and illustrations. He also wrote studies of both Rimbaud and Marquis de Sade. He became a member of Devetsil in 1923, participating in their group exhibitions. Between 1928-29 he was director of the group's drama wing, the Liberated Theater, and he was also an active editor. In addition to his Edition 69 series, he edited the Erotic Review which he launched in 1930, and Odeon. He was a founding member of The Surrealist Group of Czechoslovakia.
Marcela Sulak is the author of CITY OF SKYPAPERS (Black Lawrence Press, 2021), MOUTH FULL OF SEEDS (Black Lawrence Press, 2020), DECENCY (Black Lawrence Press, 2015), and IMMIGRANT (Black Lawrence Press, 2010). Sulak, who translates from the Hebrew, Czech, and French, is a 2019 NEA Translation Fellow, and her fourth book-length translation of poetry: Twenty Girls to Envy Me: Selected Poems of Orit Gidali, was nominated for the 2017 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation (University of Texas Press). Her essays have appeared in The Boston Review, The Iowa Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Asymptote, and Gulf Coast online, among others. She coordinates the poetry track of the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University, where she is an associate professor in American Literature. She also edits The Ilanot Review and hosts the TLV.1 Radio podcast, Israel in Translation.
