Poetry
Rainbow
Ծիածան
Misak Metsarents · 1907
Synopsis
Short, highly musical verses in which night, rain, the open window and light caught in water recur. Nature is seen in them as a living world, with a cosmic imagery of nights, stars and universes, and a body that is wearing itself out keeps, against the certainty of an approaching death, a taste for desire and joy.
Context
The announcement of the publication appeared in Masis in the spring of 1907, and the author's second book followed within the year. Both set off a quarrel over symbolism: the verses were reproached for ignoring the national question that occupied all contemporaries, and the author replied with articles. At his death he left one hundred and thirty pieces in verse, about ten in prose and a few critical texts. The two collections were brought together in a single volume in Constantinople in 1924, and have hardly been separated since.
Who it is for
Short, in a very musical Western Armenian that loses more in translation than others do. No French edition of the whole exists.
Prizes and reception
One of the only two books published during the author's lifetime, which, according to critics, raised Western Armenian poetry to a new level.