Acropolis: The Wawel Plays

Although he never left his native Kraków except for relatively short periods, Stanis¿aw Wyspiäski (1869-1907) achieved worldwide fame, both as a painter, and Poland's greatest dramatist of the first half of the twentieth century. Acropolis: the Wawel Plays, brings together four of Wyspiäski's most important dramatic works in a new English translation by Charles S. Kraszewski. All of the plays centre on Wawel Hill: the legendary seat of royal and ecclesiastical power in the poet's native city, the ancient capital of Poland. In these plays, Wyspiäski explores the foundational myths of his nation: that of the self-sacrificial Wanda, and the struggle between King Boles¿aw the Bold and Bishop Stanis¿aw Szczepanowski. In the eponymous play which brings the cycle to an end, Wyspiäski carefully considers the value of myth to a nation without political autonomy, soaring in thought into an apocalyptic vision of the future. Richly illustrated with the poet's artwork, Acropolis: the Wawel Plays also contains Wyspiäski's architectural proposal for the renovation of Wawel Hill, and a detailed critical introduction by the translator. In its plaited presentation of Boles¿aw the Bold and Skäka, the translation offers, for the first time, the two plays in the unified, composite format that the poet intended, but was prevented from carrying out by his untimely death. Charles S. Kraszewski (b. 1962) is a poet, translator and literary critic. He has published three volumes of original verse: Beast (Alexandria, 2013), Diet of Nails (Boston, 2013) and Chanameed (Atlanta, 2015). Among his critical works is Irresolute Heresiarch: Catholicism, Gnosticism and Paganism in the Poetry of Czes¿aw Mi¿osz (Newcastle-on-Tyne, 2012); many of his verse translations are collected in the volume Rossetti's Armadillo (Newcastle-on-Tyne, 2014). His English translation of Forefathers' Eve by Adam Mickiewicz was published by Glagoslav in 2016. This book has been published with the support of the ©POLAND Translation Program.