Adam Mickiewicz in the context of Poems

Poetry (from the Greek word poiesis, "making") is a form of literary art that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, literal or surface-level meanings. Any particular instance of poetry is called a poem and is written by a poet. Poets use a variety of techniques called poetic devices, such as assonance, alliteration, consonance, euphony and cacophony, onomatopoeia, rhythm (via metre), rhyme schemes (patterns in the type and placement of a phoneme group) and sound symbolism, to produce musical or other artistic effects. They also frequently organize these devices into poetic structures, which may be strict or loose, conventional or invented by the poet. Poetic structures vary dramatically by language and cultural convention, but they often rely on rhythmic metre: patterns of syllable stress or syllable (or mora) weight. They may also use repeating patterns of phonemes, phoneme groups, tones, words, or entire phrases. Poetic structures may even be semantic (e.g. the volta required in a Petrachan sonnet).

Most written poems are formatted in verse: a series or stack of lines on a page, which follow the poetic structure. For this reason, verse has also become a synonym (a metonym) for poetry. Some poetry types are unique to particular cultures and genres and respond to characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. Readers accustomed to identifying poetry with Dante, Goethe, Mickiewicz, or Rumi may think of it as written in lines based on rhyme and regular meter. There are, however, traditions, such as Biblical poetry and alliterative verse, that use other means to create rhythm and euphony. Other traditions, such as Somali poetry, rely on complex systems of alliteration and metre independent of writing and have been described as structurally comparable to ancient Greek and medieval European oral verse. Much modern poetry reflects a critique of poetic tradition, testing the principle of euphony itself or altogether forgoing rhyme or set rhythm. In first-person poems, the lyrics are spoken by an "I", a character who may be termed the speaker, distinct from the poet (the author). Thus if, for example, a poem asserts, "I killed my enemy in Reno", it is the speaker, not the poet, who is the killer (unless this "confession" is a form of metaphor which needs to be considered in closer context – via close reading).

Romanticism in Poland, a literary, artistic and intellectual period in the evolution of Polish culture, began around 1820, coinciding with the publication of Adam Mickiewicz's first poems in 1822. It ended with the suppression of the January 1863 Uprising against the Russian Empire in 1864. The latter event ushered in a new era in Polish culture known as Positivism.

Polish Romanticism, unlike Romanticism in some other parts of Europe, was not limited to literary and artistic concerns. Due to specific Polish historical circumstances, notably the partitions of Poland, it was also an ideological, philosophical, and political movement that expressed the ideals and way of life of a Polish society subjected to foreign rule and to ethnic and religious discrimination.

The Three Bards (Polish: trzej wieszcze, IPA: [ˈtʂɛj ˈvjɛʂt͡ʂɛ]) are the national poets of Polish Romantic literature. The term is almost exclusively used to denote Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855), Juliusz Słowacki (1809–1849) and Zygmunt Krasiński (1812–1859). Of the three, Mickiewicz is considered the most influential and Krasiński the least.

The Three Bards were thought not only to voice Polish national sentiments but to foresee their nation's future. They lived and worked in exile following the partitions of Poland, which had ended the existence of the independent Polish state. Their tragic poetical plays and epic poetry, written in the aftermath of the 1830 Uprising against Russian rule, revolved around the Polish struggle for independence from the three occupying foreign empires.

Dziady (Polish pronunciation: [ˈdʑadɨ] , 'Forefathers' Eve') is a poetic drama by the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz. It is considered one of the greatest works of both Polish and European Romanticism. To George Sand and Georg Brandes, Dziady was a supreme realization of Romantic drama theory, to be ranked with such works as Goethe's Faust and Byron's Manfred.

The drama's title refers to Dziady, an ancient Slavic and Lithuanian feast commemorating the dead (the "forefathers"). The drama has four parts, the first of which was never finished. Parts I, II and IV were influenced by Gothic fiction and Byron's poetry. Part III joins historiosophical and individual visions of pain and annexation, especially under the 18th-century partitions of Poland. Part III was written ten years after the others and differs greatly from them. The first to have been composed is "Dziady, Part II", dedicated chiefly to the Dziady Slavic feast of commemoration of the dead which laid the foundations of the poem and is celebrated in what is now Belarus.

Pan Tadeusz (full title: Sir Thaddeus, or the Last Foray in Lithuania: A Nobility's Tale of the Years 1811–1812, in Twelve Books of Verse) is an epic poem by the Polish poet, writer, translator and philosopher Adam Mickiewicz. The book, written in Polish alexandrines, was first published by Aleksander Jełowicki on 28 June 1834 in Paris. It is deemed one of the last great epic poems in European literature.

Pan Tadeusz, Poland's national epic, is compulsory reading in Polish schools and has been translated into 33 languages. A film version, directed by Andrzej Wajda, was released in 1999. In 2014 Pan Tadeusz was incorporated into Poland's list in the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme.

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 partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth by the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Habsburg monarchy.

Grażyna is an 1823 narrative poem by Adam Mickiewicz, written in the summer of 1822 during a year-long sabbatical in Vilnius, while away from his teaching duties in Kowno.

The poem describes the exploits of a mythical Lithuanian chieftainess Grażyna (Lithuanian: Gražina) against the forces of the medieval Order of the Teutonic Knights. The woman character is believed to have been based on Mickiewicz's own sweetheart from Kaunas, Karolina Kowalska. The name was originally conceived by Mickiewicz himself, having used the root of the Lithuanian adjective graži, meaning "beautiful".

Count Napoleon Stanisław Adam Feliks Zygmunt Krasiński (Polish: [ˈzɨɡmunt kraˈɕij̃skʲi]; 19 February 1812 – 23 February 1859) was a Polish poet traditionally ranked after Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Słowacki as one of Poland's Three Bards – the Romantic poets who influenced national consciousness in the period of Partitions of Poland.

Krasiński was the most famous member of the noble Krasiński family. He was born in Paris to Count Wincenty Krasiński and Princess Maria Urszula Radziwiłł, a member of the aristocratic Radziwiłł family, and became the close companion of his father after his mother's early death from tuberculosis. He was educated by tutors prior to attending the Warsaw Lyceum, where he graduated in 1827. He then started to study law and administration at the Royal University of Warsaw, but was expelled from the university in 1829.

Aleksander Jełowicki (18 December 1804 in Hubnyk - 15 April 1877 in Rome) was a Polish writer, poet, translator and publisher. He was a veteran of the November Uprising, deputy to the Sejm of Congress Poland for the Haisyn powiat and political exile in France, where he was a social activist, superior of the Polish Catholic Mission in Paris and monk.

Among the works he published are the first editions of Adam Mickiewicz's Part III of Dziady (1832) and Pan Tadeusz (1834). Between 1835 and 1838 he was leading partner of the publishing house and printing works, Jełowicki i S-ka in Paris. His list of authors constitutes a major part of Poland's 19th-century literary canon and includes: Juliusz Słowacki, Zygmunt Krasiński, Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, Kazimierz Brodziński, Stefan Witwicki, Wincenty Pol, Antoni Gorecki, Maurycy Mochnacki, Joachim Lelewel, Henryk Rzewuski, Michał Czajkowski, Klementyna Hoffmanowa, Ignacy Krasicki.

Sir Thaddeus, or the Last Lithuanian Foray (Polish: Pan Tadeusz, czyli ostatni zajazd na Litwie), also simply known as Sir Thaddeus (Pan Tadeusz), is a 1999 film directed by Andrzej Wajda. It is based on the 1834 eponymous epic poem by Polish poet, writer and philosopher Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855). As in the poem, conflict between the Soplica and Horeszko families serves as a backdrop for discussion of issues of Polish national unity and the struggle for independence.

The Trilogy (1884–1888) is a series of three novels written by the Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz. The series follows dramatized versions of famous events in Polish history, weaving fact and fiction. It is considered a great literary work, on par with Adam Mickiewicz's Pan Tadeusz.

The first novel, titled With Fire and Sword, chronicles the mid-17th century Khmelnytsky Uprising, a revolt by the Ukrainian Cossacks in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Polish literature is the literary tradition of Poland. Most Polish literature has been written in the Polish language, though other languages used in Poland over the centuries have also contributed to Polish literary traditions, including Latin, Yiddish, Lithuanian, Russian, German and Esperanto. According to Czesław Miłosz, for centuries Polish literature focused more on drama and poetic self-expression than on fiction (dominant in the English speaking world). The reasons were manifold but mostly rested on the historical circumstances of the nation. Polish writers typically have had a more profound range of choices to motivate them to write, including past cataclysms of extraordinary violence that swept Poland (as the crossroads of Europe), but also, Poland's collective incongruities demanding an adequate reaction from the writing communities of any given period.

The period of Polish Enlightenment began in the 1730s–40s and peaked in the second half of the 18th century. Leading Polish Enlightenment authors included Ignacy Krasicki (1735–1801) and Jan Potocki (1761–1815). Polish Romanticism, unlike Romanticism elsewhere in Europe, was largely a movement for independence against the foreign occupation. Early Polish Romantics were heavily influenced by other European Romantics. Notable writers included Adam Mickiewicz, Seweryn Goszczyński, Tomasz Zan and Maurycy Mochnacki.

Apollon Nikolayevich Maykov (Russian: Аполло́н Никола́евич Ма́йков, 4 June [O.S. 23 May] 1821, Moscow – 20 March [O.S. 8 March] 1897, Saint Petersburg) was a Russian poet, best known for his lyric verse showcasing images of Russian villages, nature, and history. His love for ancient Greece and Rome, which he studied for much of his life, is also reflected in his works. Maykov spent four years translating the epic The Tale of Igor's Campaign (1870) into modern Russian. He translated the folklore of Belarus, Greece, Serbia and Spain, as well as works by Heine, Adam Mickiewicz and Goethe, among others. Several of Maykov's poems were set to music by Russian composers, among them Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky.

Maykov was born into an artistic family and educated at home, by the writer Ivan Goncharov, among others. At the age of 15, he began writing his first poetry. After finishing his gymnasium course in just three years, he enrolled in Saint Petersburg University in 1837.

Ivan Yakovych Franko PhD (Ukrainian: Іван Якович Франко, pronounced [iˈwɑn ˈjɑkowɪtʃ frɐnˈkɔ]; 27 August 1856 – 28 May 1916) was a Ukrainian poet, writer, social and literary critic, journalist, translator, economist, political activist, ethnographer, and the author of the first detective novels and modern poetry in Ukrainian.

Franko was a political radical, and a founder of the socialist and nationalist movement in Western Ukraine. In addition to his own literary work, he also translated into Ukrainian the works of such renowned figures as William Shakespeare, Lord Byron, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Dante Alighieri, Victor Hugo, Adam Mickiewicz, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller. His translations appeared on the stage of the Ruska Besida Theatre. Along with Taras Shevchenko, he has had a tremendous influence on modern literary and political thought in Ukraine.