[
Crimean Sonnets] is a sequence of eighteen sonnets by Poland’s national poet Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855). Published in Moscow in 1826 together with a cycle of erotic (
velOdessa) sonnets under the omnibus title
Sonety, the work is a programmatic exercise in romantic Orientalism that draws unabashedly on, among others, Byron
’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Silvestre de Sacy’s
Chrestomathie arabe, Alexander Pushkin’s
Fountain of Bakhchisarai, Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall’s
Geschichte der schönen Redekünste Persiens,and
One Thousand and One Nights.And it is to Goethe’s
West-östlicher Divanthat Mickiewicz turns for the epigraph to his own cycle: “Wer den Dichter will verstehen, / Muss in Dichter’s Lande gehen” (
Dzieła1:233). The Orientalist style…
3788 words
Citation: Koropeckyj, Roman. "Sonety krymskie". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 November 2021 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=33995, accessed 24 November 2024.]