Description
Book SynopsisCzesław Miłosz, poet, literary critic, essayist and Nobel Laureate, is a familiar person to the Anglophone literary community. But American and British critics in the main are not very competent in the intimate features of Polish literary culture and have no access to the Polish language. This volume presents some of the most penetrating commentaries on Miłosz’s œuvre by Polish critics. They illuminate both intrinsic poetic matters, such as the verse structure or the genre tradition, and the specific historic background of his poems, such as life under Nazi occupation. This comprehensive outline will be indispensable to anyone wanting to understand the real meaning of the often enigmatic writer and his, as Helen Vendler called it,
Shakespearean breadth.
Table of ContentsContents: Teresa Walas: Miłosz as a Figure of Problematic Identity – Michał Paweł Markowski: The Dilemmas of Self-Presentation – Aleksander Fiut: Żagary and Skamander - Czesław Miłosz’s Correspondence with Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz – Maria Janion: Kroński - Miłosz: An Episode from the History of Ideas and Poetry – Stefan Chwin: The Time of the Bible and the Time of Mr. Cogitp. or the Essence of the Dispute between Herbert and Miłosz – Leszek Kołakowski: Ninety Years in Search of a Homeland – Stanisław Balbus: «The First Movement Is a Singing»: A Preliminary Study of Miłosz’s Verse – Marian Stala: «Ecstasy at Sunrise»: Among Miłosz’s Major Themes – Stanisław Balbus: «Conversation at Easter 1620» - An Intertextual Interpretation – Ryszard Nycz: «Thrown in the Geographically Shaky Position»: Czesław Miłosz’s Experience of Space and Place – Elżbieta Rybicka: Homo Geopgraphicus: The Topographies and Auto-Bio-Geographies of Czesław Miłosz (A Reconnaissance) – Elżbieta Kiślak: Destined Affinities and Eclectic Love – Jacek Łukasiewicz: Poet on Poets – Marek Zaleski: Songs of Innocence and Experience – Łukasz Tischner: Towards Fullness – Stanisław Barańczak: Dawns – Michał Głowiński: «Outskirts» – Aleksandra Okopoień- Sławińska: «Outskirts» as another «Song on the End of the World»: A Contribution to the Definition of Czesław Miłosz’s Poetic Art – Jerzy Kwiatkowski: Miłosz at the Brink of the Occupation: «The River» – Jan Błoński: The Intellect’s Return:
A Treatise on Poetry (1957) – Adam Dziadek: Poetry as Interpretation of Art: Czesław Miłosz’s Poems about Pictures – Danuta Opacka-Walasek: A Pastiche Against Dying: «In Honour of Reverend Baka» by Czesław Miłosz – Piotr Śliwiński: A Sinking Life – Ewa Bieńkowska: Miłosz and the Book of Psalms.
