In Verona

Norwid rejected some features of modern romantic poetry (He was younger than Mickiewicz and Słowacki). Proposed, for poetry to keep a distance to the described phenomena, She used irony, underfloorial. Getting against tearful emotionality, At the same time, he constantly attacked the then civilization of money and work. He was an opponent of simplified materialism, excessive trust in learning, faith in its unlimited possibilities. He considered, that the nineteenth century brought the money in pursuit of money, Emotional emptiness with material goods, made them incapable of deeper experiences, subtle feelings. Accompanied this – According to the poet – blur of the recommendations of Christian morality.

It is above all that the poem in Verona speaks about the emotional emptiness – The song was probably written under the influence of a visit to this city. The poet appeals in the poem (This is a kind of literary allusion) to the tragedy of William Shakespeare Romeo and Julia. The first two, Very lyrical stanzas are descriptive: on the ruin of feuding families falling into the ruin, The mild eye of blue looks at the grave of lovers. The star falls from the sky (that is, a meteor considered in folk beliefs as a tear of angels). Nature has been personified (that's her, People have no emotional attitude towards the Romeo and Julia tragedy), world, like in folk tradition, manage the rights of feelings. Sky, Angels remember about lovers, they still cry, Remembering the great, The unhappy love of Romeo and Julia. This mood of reflection, Compassion is broken by the last stanza of the poem:

And people say, And they say learning,
That these are not tears, But that stones,
And – that nobody is waiting for them.

The love story of Romeo and Julia is beautiful, lofty, Mysterious and poetic. Unfortunately, The attitude towards her modern people to the lyrical subject of the poem turns out to be very flat, earthbound, In fact, the tragedy from centuries ago does not move at all. Of course, Meteors are not tears of angels, Science is not wrong. But learning is not everything in human life, beyond it remains huge, How important a sphere of feelings, feelings that make us people. You can not look at everything through scientific laws, rules (This belief has expressed many times) – Certainly not for love. For this legendary love, feeling of characters created by an English writer, from literature, not the lives of real people. Romeo and Julia are a symbol of beautiful and unhappy, destructive love. Nobody is waiting for a falling star, Lovers are not alive for a long time. Only cypresses (symbolizing mourning, despair, Trees willingly planted at the graves) remain carriers of memory of lovers, feeling.

Let's repeat again: It is a song that expresses their disagreement with mundane, Extremely materialist vision of the world, granting excessive rank to science (The term learning is clearly ironic in the poem). Which is also a voice in defense of the memory of human feelings, against the indifference of money in civilization. The world from this song is governed by something completely different – the rights of feelings arising from folk tradition. Confrontation of folk beliefs with Enlightenment rationalism is a fairly common procedure in romanticism – In this case, Norwid does not cross any of the positions, Instead, it draws attention, that these forms of knowledge are completed, They are complementary to each other.

Contemporary, as the poem suggests, They live in an emotional emptiness, incapacity for emotions, compassion, They only see the external world of the world described by science and do not even try to explore the secrets of the soul. And it's not about tearness, sentimentality, but about a moment of reflection on the tragic fate of young people. Starting from reminding the story of Romeo and Julia, image of their homes, grave, The poet is widely philosophical reflection, even social.

In Verona, it is also a good example of the poetic language typical of Norwid lyrics: short, distinguished by an elaborate construction, saving used artistic means, somewhat ironic, full of hidden meanings, understatement (Although the text has the features of a discursive speech). Nature has been subjected to personification here. The whole song is a literary allusion (to Shakespeare), parable.

The discussed poem consists of four three -story verses. The first two verses of each stanza were written by eleven, last – octopter. The author used female rhymes with a system: aab ccb.