Vade-mecum (Norwid)

Vade-mecum
Manuscript of Vade-mecum
AuthorCyprian Kamil Norwid
LanguagePolish
Genrepoetry
PublisherOficyna Poetów i Malarzy na Emigracji
Publication date
1953
Publication placeEngland

Vade-mecum is the most important collection of poetry by Cyprian Kamil Norwid.[1]

In 1865-1866 Cyprian Kamil Norwid gathered the poems he had been writing since the end of the 1840s into a large cycle, mecum-vade, however, it was not published during the poet's lifetime, but fragments of the cycle were published in 1903–1933.[2]

After Norwid's death, the manuscript of Vade-mecum was kept by his relatives, the Dybowski family and in 1898 it became the property of Zenon Przesmycki.[1] Przesmycki died during the Warsaw Uprising, but his archives, together with Norwid's legacy, were saved and after the World War II found their way to the National Library of Poland.[2] A phototype of manuscript was published by Wacław Borowy in 1947 and it was used as the basis for the first edition of Vade-mecum (Tunbridge, England 1953).[2] A critical edition of Norwid's cycle was prepared in 1966 by Juliusz Wiktor Gomulicki.[2] Since May 2024, an autograph copy of the Vade-mecum has been exhibited at a permanent exhibition in the Palace of the Commonwealth.[3][1]

The one-hundred-poem collection includes poems which are so well known as With Hands Swollen from Clapping (Polish: Klaskaniem mając obrzękłe prawice), In Verona (Polish: W Weronie) and Chopin's Pianoforte (Polish: Fortepian Szopena) and is supplemented by a prose prologue, the poem Generalisations (Polish: Ogólniki).[2] Some poems had been published earlier, some were written specially for the cycle and some came from the lyrical codex, an earlier manuscript.[2]

  1. ^ a b c Makowski & Sapała 2024, p. 160.
  2. ^ a b c d e f More precious than gold 2003, section "Cyprian Norwid's Vade-mecum".
  3. ^ "Palace of the Commonwealth open to visitors". National Library of Poland. 2024-05-28. Retrieved 2024-06-11.