"Ode to Youth" ( pl, "Oda do młodości") is an 1820 poem by Polish Romantic-era poet, dramatist and essayist

Adam Mickiewicz Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (; 24 December 179826 November 1855) was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator and political activist. He is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. A principal figure in Polish Ro ...

Background and critical reception

"Ode to Youth" was one of Mickiewicz' first poems, and one of his most popular and enduring ones, although the reception among critics has been mixed. It has been described by one literature scholar, Ignacy Chrzanowski, as "Mickiewicz's first masterpiece"; another scholar, Juliusz Kleiner, disagreed. The theme of the poem is the duties and rights of the youth in the service of an overarching, higher ideal. The youth are said to have a moral obligation to take action.

Michael Ferber Michael Kelvin Ferber (born July 1, 1944) was the youngest of the five defendants in the federal anti-draft trial in the spring of 1968 in Boston, Massachusetts. The trial attracted national attention because one of the defendants was Dr. Benjamin ...

describes it as "unabashedly Schillerian in inspiration", and notes that the poem "deftly exploits neo-Classicist poetics in order to subvert the discourse that engendered them." The poem has also been described as a manifesto of the secret student organization, the

Philomaths The Philomaths, or Philomath Society ( pl, Filomaci or ''Towarzystwo Filomatów''; from the Greek φιλομαθεῖς "lovers of knowledge"), was a secret student organization that existed from 1817 to 1823 at the Imperial University of Vilniu ...

, to which Mickiewicz belonged at that time.

Publishing

Mickiewicz finished the poem in 1820, the year of his debut as a poet, but it was not included in his first tome of poetry, published that year. This was because the "Ode" was seen as too patriotic and revolutionary for publication in the Russian portion of partitioned Poland where Mickiewicz spent his youth, and as such rejected by the reviewing Russian censor in

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...

. It would not appear officially for many years, but unofficial copies were made in such numbers that at the time of the November Uprising (an unsuccessful Polish insurrection against the occupying Russian forces) in 1830 the poem was already well known. Koropeckyj writes that "copied and recopied among the youths of Vilnius and soon enough beyond ... tbecame the hymn of a generation." The work was first published, unauthorized, in

Lviv Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukrain ...

(in the

Austrian Partition The Austrian Partition ( pl, zabór austriacki) comprise the former territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth acquired by the Habsburg monarchy during the Partitions of Poland in the late 18th century. The three partitions were conduct ...

) 1827; the first version authorized by Mickiewicz was published in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

in 1838.

References

{{Authority control 1820 poems Polish poems Works by Adam Mickiewicz

Background and critical reception

Publishing

See also

References