“Why youth did not give me God, the reed, light, wanton?” — Settlement Life in the Works of Maria Bartusówna

The problems of youth and old age are important motives in the works of Maria Bartusówna. Youth,
symbolising a time of joy, madness, carelessness, sometimes stupidity in the works of the deceased at the
age of 31 years the poet is seen as a time of suffering, pessimism and doubt. Autumn, as old age is associated
with sadness, despair, loneliness, pain and death. In a series of sonnets entitled Prenuptial Thoughts
Bartusówna presented the internal conflict of a young girl. On one side there is a convention and the
duty to ensure the material existence for himself and his mother. Among the values specific to the time of
youth there are: freedom, love, happiness individual units. In both cycle of Prenuptial Thoughts and songs
from volume Poems motives of youth and old age are interweared. It seems that the poet was marked
by the problem of the old age in adolescence, because of her youth accompanied by incessant suffering
caused by the death of loved ones, unhappy love, the incapability to realise her dreams, financial problems and severe disease causing death at a young age.