Song of the Forest

Lesia Ukrainka was a Ukrainian poet, prose writer, and dramatist of universal importance. Her first collection of poetry, On the Wings of Song (1893), established her reputation as an accomplished lyrical poet. This collection contains her often-quoted poem 'Contra spem spero' (Hope against Hope)?an expression of her remarkable strength of character and determination to face down a severe illness (tuberculosis of the bones) that afflicted her from an early age and caused her untimely death at the age of 42. Lesia Ukrainka wrote her masterpieces in the genres of drama and dramatic poetry, to which she turned her attention in the early 1900s. Many of her dramas were set in a variety of historical epochs, from those of ancient Greece and biblical Palestine to early modern Spain, eighteenth-century Muscovy, and the first Puritan settlers in America. Her most acclaimed play, The Song of the Forest (1911), is a symbolist fantasy drama in verse that evokes the neo-romantic concept of 'living