Verse Epistle

The verse epistle (poslannia) is a lyric or lyric-publicistic work in the form of the poet's address to a particular person, a group of people, or an entire nation, expressing reflections, appeals, admonitions, or friendly feelings. The genre descends from the verse letters of the Roman Horace (the Epistle to the Pisos, known as the Ars Poetica). The epistle combines the intimate confidingness of a letter with publicistic passion. In Ukrainian literature the most famous example of the genre is Taras Shevchenko's epistle To the Dead, the Living, and the Unborn Countrymen of Mine in Ukraine and Not in Ukraine, a sharp, impassioned work addressed to his compatriots with a call for national awakening, unity, and labor for the sake of Ukraine. The epistle form was also used by Ivan Franko and Panteleimon Kulish.