Edison (poem) explained

Edison is an epic poem by Czech poet Vítězslav Nezval.^[1] It was written in 1927.^[2] Later it was included in the poetic book Básně noci (Poems of the Night) which was published in 1930.^[3] The main hero of the poem is American inventor Thomas Alva Edison, considered by the author to be a modern genius. Nezval's work is a praise of human activity, technology, and science, but also an expression of anxiety about civilisation.^[4] Nezval compares the inventor's work to writing poetry.^[5] He points out that every creative work demands much toil and courage.^[6] After Edison's death in 1931 Nezval wrote Signál času (Signal of time) which is an elegy. Both poems are written in the same measure, trochaic hexameter. Nezval uses long enumerations,^[7] building sophisticated poetical imagery.^[8] Nezval's Edison was probably influenced by Guillaume Apollinaire's work, especially the poem Zone, which was translated into Czech by Karel Čapek.^[9]

Translations

The poem was translated into English by Ewald Osers. François Kérel, helped by Nezval himself, translated the poem into French.^[10] It was also twice translated into Polish, by Kazimierz Andrzej Jaworski and Józef Waczków.

Bibliography

• Vítězslav Nezval, Edison. Báseň o pěti zpěvech. Translated from the Czech by Ewald Osers (parallel Czech and English texts), Dvořák, Pelhřimov 2003.
• Vítězslav Nezval, Cudowny czarodziej. Wybór i wstęp Jacek Baluch, redakcja Andrzej Piotrowski, Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, Warszawa 1969 (in Polish).

Notes and References

1. Web site: Slovník české literatury.
2. Milan Blahynka, Ediční poznámka, [in:] Vítězslav Nezval, Básně noci, Odeon, Praha 1966, p. 160. (in Czech)
3. Alfred Thomas, The Bohemian Body: Gender and Sexuality in Modern Czech Culture, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 2007, p. 126.
4. Web site: Biskoupky.cz: oficiální informační portál obce Biskoupky. Miroslav. Patočka.
5. Web site: Vítézslav Nezval.
6. Web site: Thomas Edison and Pop Culture. 21 February 2012.
7. Web site: Enumeratio(n) in Rhetoric: Point by Point by Point. 2016-08-22. 2017-01-26. https://web.archive.org/web/20170126051131/http://grammar.about.com/od/e/g/Enumeratio.htm. dead.
8. Barbara Mytko, Apollinaire i czeska awangarda poetycka, Studia Rossica Posnaniensia 17, 1982/1983, pp. 67-75 (in Polish).
9. http://complit.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/COL1000H_Deborah_Garfinkle.pdf Deborah Garfinkle, Karel Čapek's Pásmo and the construction of literary modernity through the art of translation, The Slavic and east European Journal, Vol. 47, No. 3 (Autumn 2003), pp. 345-366.
10. Web site: V. Nezval: Edison. 2016-08-22. 2021-05-13. https://web.archive.org/web/20210513142805/http://tnit.fr/book/edison.htm. dead.