Cyprian Kamil Norwid’s “Klaskaniem mając obrzękłe prawice…” [“Their Hands Swollen with Applause…”] (1858), also known, mistakenly, as “Do potomności” [“To Posterity”], is the opening poem to his poetic sequence Vade-mecum. The poem serves as a personal apologia, programmatically illustrating the poet’s aesthetic ideals while articulating his anxieties about poetic posterity.
The complex history of the poem’s publication reflects the peculiar circumstances of Norwid’s belated reception and unhappy fate during his lifetime. He wrote the poem in 1858 and hoped to publish it along with the entirety of Vade-mecum, …
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Citation: Lavery, Michael, Aliaksandra Razor, Dane Reighard, Yelena Severina. "Klaskaniem mając obrzękłe prawice…". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 February 2018 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35900, accessed 21 November 2024.]