The Seasons (poem)
Encyclopedia
The Seasons is the first Lithuanian
poem
written by Kristijonas Donelaitis
around 1765–1775. It was published as "Das Jahr" in Königsberg
, 1818
by Ludwig Rhesa
, who also entitled the poem and selected the arrangement of the parts. The German translation was included in the first edition of the poem. The book was dedicated to Wilhelm von Humboldt
. The poem is considered a masterpiece of early Lithuanian literature
.
s, totaling 2997 hexameter
s, are depicted the natural setting of Lithuania Minor
, its people, their work, and their customs. The poem forms a realistic portrayal of Lietuvninks peasants' life in the middle 18th century, as it was affected by colonization of East Prussia
. Germans
and Austrians
, Swiss and French
, brought in and given special consideration by the government, became the upper class of landlords and officials, while the indigenous population became the lower class of serf
s. In The Seasons the village life of the latter is depicted as patriarchal in structure. The natural virtues idealized by the Pietist movement, diligence, piety, honesty, and submission to authority, flourish. Social consciousness of the people is largely dormant. There appear only a few characters through whose lips the poet accuses the gentry and the government of exploiting the people. However, such characters are not portrayed sympathetically; they are considered degenerates by the villagers in the poem and by its author. The poet contents himself with telling his readers that all men were created equal in the beginning and that only later did some become lords and others serfs. Donelaitis calls the latter burai (boors), and shows deep sympathy for them. He reprimands their evil exploiters, but he does not raise any protest against the system of serfdom
.
The social contrast coincided with a national and even a moral division. The villagers, who cultivated the aforementioned virtues, were Lithuanian. The immigrant colonists tended to weaken these virtues with their drunkenness and their backsliding from the church. The poet condemns the imported vices and urges his brother Lithuanians (Lietuvninks) not to succumb to the novelties but to preserve their traditions, including their language, customs, and dress. In a word he preaches passive resistance, though with some exceptions. The author recognizes certain desirable traits in the newcomers. For instance, he urges Lithuanian women to learn industriousness and other useful virtues from the German women. In the general picture portrayed by the poem it is evident that with the aging and passing of the exponents of the old patriarchal culture the Lithuanian village with its traditions is sinking in the maelstrom
of immigrant culture.
of the poem is often interrupted by asides, didactic passages and lyrical reflections. The characters are sketchy; they are simply good or simply bad, with few nuances. Donelaitis is not giving too detailed description of objects or persons. He shows them in the dynamic of life, acting and speaking, even larger than life. The poet, moreover, knows the psychology of peasant and serf. To this end the poet makes ingenious use of synecdoche
. He also employs hyperbole
, exaggerating tempo of action, distances, and results to the point of demolishing the bounds of reality and creating a new artistic world.
Donelaitis has nature operating in terms which only a villager’s associations could attribute to it. The picturesque vocabulary of Donelaitis is akin to folklore
. He never waters down a phrase, nor does he euphemize, but is able to recreate in words the substantiality of the world and the speech of the rustic
s he portrays. His diction is crisp and fresh, and - because of its authenticity
- simple and dignified. On the other hand, the language is full of unique metaphor
s, personifications, analogies, and hyperbolas which make it highly poetical.
s, poems, and idylls then in vogue in Germany
and Europe
in general, nor did it depart from the fashion of writing in imitation of the ancient Greek and Roman poets. The Seasons, moreover, followed the literary tendency of the day to portray not cities and aristocrats but rather the natural setting of the village and its inhabitants (for example James Thomson, Albrecht von Haller
, Ewald Christian von Kleist
, Barthold Heinrich Brockes
). In the poem the reader finds a good deal of the didactic element so popular at the time.
Donelaitis, however, stands out among other writers firstly in that he employed the classical hexameter before any European writer of the age. (Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock
, for example, used it only in 1848
). Secondly, for this Lithuanian poet nature was not conceived in the spirit of the Age of Enlightenment
; the peasants he portrayed were not sentimentalized stereotype
s. People in The Seasons are drawn realistically, with their labors, experiences, cares, and primitive mentality, abounding with mythology
. Thirdly, Donelaitis is characterized by his clear stand in the social, ethnic, and moral clash between the immigrant colonists and the old Lithuanian inhabitants. This was his original contribution.
written in the Lithuanian language, the first Lithuanian poem as well as the most successful Lithuanian hexameter piece to date. It has long stepped over the borders of Lithuanian literature
: it has been translated into Belarusian
, Bulgarian
, Czech
, English
, Finnish
, French
, Georgian
, German
, Hungarian
, Japanese
, Yiddish
, Italian
, Latvian
, Polish
, Russian
, Romanian
and Esperanto
. The Seasons (most probably in its German translation) was highly valued by Adam Mickiewicz
and has inspired him to write a poem Konrad Wallenrod
. Goethe is also said to have liked the poem.
Acclaimed Lithuanian theatre director Eimuntas Nekrošius
, has adapted the first and third part of the piece to the performances Donelaitis. Metai. Pavasario linksmybės (Donelaitis.The Seasons.Spring joys) and Donelaitis. Metai. Rudens darbai (Donelaitis.The Seasons.Autumn toils), staged in 2003.
Lithuanian language
Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
poem
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
written by Kristijonas Donelaitis
Kristijonas Donelaitis
Kristijonas Donelaitis was a Prussian Lithuanian Lutheran pastor and poet. He lived and worked in Lithuania Minor, a territory in the Kingdom of Prussia, that had a sizable minority of ethnic Lithuanians...
around 1765–1775. It was published as "Das Jahr" in Königsberg
Königsberg
Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...
, 1818
1818 in poetry
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-John Keats:* In December, Keats is invited by his friend, Charles Armitage Brown, to move into Brown's home at Wentworth Place, in Hampstead, then a pastoral suburb north of London...
by Ludwig Rhesa
Ludwig Rhesa
thumb|Bust of Rheza at [[Vilnius University]]Ludwig Rhesa, also known as Martin Ludwig Rhesa, Ludwig Jedemin Rhesa, Liudvikas Rėza , was a consistorial councilor and a professor at the University of Königsberg in East Prussia.He was born as Ludwig Rheese in the village of Karwaiten on the Curonian...
, who also entitled the poem and selected the arrangement of the parts. The German translation was included in the first edition of the poem. The book was dedicated to Wilhelm von Humboldt
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand Freiherr von Humboldt was a German philosopher, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of Humboldt Universität. He is especially remembered as a linguist who made important contributions to the philosophy of language and to the theory and practice...
. The poem is considered a masterpiece of early Lithuanian literature
Lithuanian literature
Lithuanian literature concerns the art of written works compiled by Lithuanians throughout their history.-Latin language:A wealth of Lithuanian literature was written in Latin, the main scholarly language in the Middle Ages.-Lithuanian language:...
.
Synopsis
The poem consists of 4 parts: "Spring Joys," "Summer Toils," "Autumn Boons," and "Winter Cares." In these 4 idyllIdyll
An idyll or idyl is a short poem, descriptive of rustic life, written in the style of Theocritus' short pastoral poems, the Idylls....
s, totaling 2997 hexameter
Hexameter
Hexameter is a metrical line of verse consisting of six feet. It was the standard epic metre in classical Greek and Latin literature, such as in the Iliad and Aeneid. Its use in other genres of composition include Horace's satires, and Ovid's Metamorphoses. According to Greek mythology, hexameter...
s, are depicted the natural setting of Lithuania Minor
Lithuania Minor
Lithuania Minor or Prussian Lithuania is a historical ethnographic region of Prussia, later East Prussia in Germany, where Prussian Lithuanians or Lietuvininkai lived. Lithuania Minor enclosed the northern part of this province and got its name due to the territory's substantial...
, its people, their work, and their customs. The poem forms a realistic portrayal of Lietuvninks peasants' life in the middle 18th century, as it was affected by colonization of East Prussia
East Prussia
East Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
. Germans
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
and Austrians
Austrians
Austrians are a nation and ethnic group, consisting of the population of the Republic of Austria and its historical predecessor states who share a common Austrian culture and Austrian descent....
, Swiss and French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
, brought in and given special consideration by the government, became the upper class of landlords and officials, while the indigenous population became the lower class of serf
SERF
A spin exchange relaxation-free magnetometer is a type of magnetometer developed at Princeton University in the early 2000s. SERF magnetometers measure magnetic fields by using lasers to detect the interaction between alkali metal atoms in a vapor and the magnetic field.The name for the technique...
s. In The Seasons the village life of the latter is depicted as patriarchal in structure. The natural virtues idealized by the Pietist movement, diligence, piety, honesty, and submission to authority, flourish. Social consciousness of the people is largely dormant. There appear only a few characters through whose lips the poet accuses the gentry and the government of exploiting the people. However, such characters are not portrayed sympathetically; they are considered degenerates by the villagers in the poem and by its author. The poet contents himself with telling his readers that all men were created equal in the beginning and that only later did some become lords and others serfs. Donelaitis calls the latter burai (boors), and shows deep sympathy for them. He reprimands their evil exploiters, but he does not raise any protest against the system of serfdom
Serfdom
Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...
.
The social contrast coincided with a national and even a moral division. The villagers, who cultivated the aforementioned virtues, were Lithuanian. The immigrant colonists tended to weaken these virtues with their drunkenness and their backsliding from the church. The poet condemns the imported vices and urges his brother Lithuanians (Lietuvninks) not to succumb to the novelties but to preserve their traditions, including their language, customs, and dress. In a word he preaches passive resistance, though with some exceptions. The author recognizes certain desirable traits in the newcomers. For instance, he urges Lithuanian women to learn industriousness and other useful virtues from the German women. In the general picture portrayed by the poem it is evident that with the aging and passing of the exponents of the old patriarchal culture the Lithuanian village with its traditions is sinking in the maelstrom
Maelstrom
A maelstrom is a very powerful whirlpool; a large, swirling body of water. A free vortex, it has considerable downdraft. The power of tidal whirlpools tends to be exaggerated by laymen. There are virtually no stories of large ships ever being sucked into a maelstrom, although smaller craft are in...
of immigrant culture.
Style
The Seasons does not have any single, simple plot, with characters described in detail. The narrativeNarrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
of the poem is often interrupted by asides, didactic passages and lyrical reflections. The characters are sketchy; they are simply good or simply bad, with few nuances. Donelaitis is not giving too detailed description of objects or persons. He shows them in the dynamic of life, acting and speaking, even larger than life. The poet, moreover, knows the psychology of peasant and serf. To this end the poet makes ingenious use of synecdoche
Synecdoche
Synecdoche , meaning "simultaneous understanding") is a figure of speech in which a term is used in one of the following ways:* Part of something is used to refer to the whole thing , or...
. He also employs hyperbole
Hyperbole
Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally....
, exaggerating tempo of action, distances, and results to the point of demolishing the bounds of reality and creating a new artistic world.
Donelaitis has nature operating in terms which only a villager’s associations could attribute to it. The picturesque vocabulary of Donelaitis is akin to folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
. He never waters down a phrase, nor does he euphemize, but is able to recreate in words the substantiality of the world and the speech of the rustic
Rustic
Rustic can refer to:*rural*pastoralIn zoology:* Rustic moths, various noctuid moths of subfamilies Hadeninae and Noctuinae, including** The Rustic, * The Rustic , a brush-footed butterfly...
s he portrays. His diction is crisp and fresh, and - because of its authenticity
Authenticity
Authenticity refers to the truthfulness of origins, attributions, commitments, sincerity, devotion, and intentions.Authenticity or Authentic may refer to:*Authentication, having passed the tests thereof...
- simple and dignified. On the other hand, the language is full of unique metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
s, personifications, analogies, and hyperbolas which make it highly poetical.
Literatural context
This poem of Donelaitis did not differ in literary form from fableFable
A fable is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized , and that illustrates a moral lesson , which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim.A fable differs from...
s, poems, and idylls then in vogue in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
in general, nor did it depart from the fashion of writing in imitation of the ancient Greek and Roman poets. The Seasons, moreover, followed the literary tendency of the day to portray not cities and aristocrats but rather the natural setting of the village and its inhabitants (for example James Thomson, Albrecht von Haller
Albrecht von Haller
Albrecht von Haller was a Swiss anatomist, physiologist, naturalist and poet.-Early life:He was born of an old Swiss family at Bern. Prevented by long-continued ill-health from taking part in boyish sports, he had the more opportunity for the development of his precocious mind...
, Ewald Christian von Kleist
Ewald Christian von Kleist
Ewald Christian von Kleist was a German poet and officer.-Life:Kleist was born at Zeblin, near Köslin in Farther Pomerania, to the von Kleist family of cavalry leaders...
, Barthold Heinrich Brockes
Barthold Heinrich Brockes
Barthold Heinrich Brockes was a German poet.He was born at Hamburg and educated at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums. He studied jurisprudence at Halle, and after extensive travels in Italy, France and the Netherlands, settled in Hamburg in 1704...
). In the poem the reader finds a good deal of the didactic element so popular at the time.
Donelaitis, however, stands out among other writers firstly in that he employed the classical hexameter before any European writer of the age. (Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock
Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock
Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock was a German poet.-Biography:Klopstock was born at Quedlinburg, the eldest son of a lawyer.Both in his birthplace and on the estate of Friedeburg on the Saale, which his father later rented, young Klopstock passed a happy childhood; and more attention having been given...
, for example, used it only in 1848
1848 in literature
The year 1848 in literature involved some significant new books.-New books:*R M Ballantyne -Life in the Wilds of North America*Anne Brontë - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall*Edward George Bulwer-Lytton - Harold...
). Secondly, for this Lithuanian poet nature was not conceived in the spirit of the Age of Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
; the peasants he portrayed were not sentimentalized stereotype
Stereotype
A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...
s. People in The Seasons are drawn realistically, with their labors, experiences, cares, and primitive mentality, abounding with mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
. Thirdly, Donelaitis is characterized by his clear stand in the social, ethnic, and moral clash between the immigrant colonists and the old Lithuanian inhabitants. This was his original contribution.
Cultural significance
The Seasons (Metai) is the first classical piece of fictionFiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
written in the Lithuanian language, the first Lithuanian poem as well as the most successful Lithuanian hexameter piece to date. It has long stepped over the borders of Lithuanian literature
Lithuanian literature
Lithuanian literature concerns the art of written works compiled by Lithuanians throughout their history.-Latin language:A wealth of Lithuanian literature was written in Latin, the main scholarly language in the Middle Ages.-Lithuanian language:...
: it has been translated into Belarusian
Belarusian language
The Belarusian language , sometimes referred to as White Russian or White Ruthenian, is the language of the Belarusian people...
, Bulgarian
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
, Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Georgian
Georgian language
Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, Yiddish
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, Latvian
Latvian language
Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...
, Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
and Esperanto
Esperanto
is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...
. The Seasons (most probably in its German translation) was highly valued by Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...
and has inspired him to write a poem Konrad Wallenrod
Konrad Wallenrod (poem)
Konrad Wallenrod is an 1828 narrative poem, in Polish, by Adam Mickiewicz, set in the 14th-century Grand Duchy of Lithuania.Mickiewicz wrote it, while living in St. Petersburg, Russia, in protest against the late-18th-century partitioning of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by the Russian...
. Goethe is also said to have liked the poem.
Acclaimed Lithuanian theatre director Eimuntas Nekrošius
Eimuntas Nekrošius
Eimuntas Nekrošius is one of the most renowned theatre directors in Lithuania.- Career :...
, has adapted the first and third part of the piece to the performances Donelaitis. Metai. Pavasario linksmybės (Donelaitis.The Seasons.Spring joys) and Donelaitis. Metai. Rudens darbai (Donelaitis.The Seasons.Autumn toils), staged in 2003.
External links
- English translation of The Seasons
- About the poem - from the Lithuanian Classical Literature Anthology
- Full text of the poem in the Lithuanian language
- The text written in the original spelling