On Czeslaw Milosz
By Eva Hoffman
Princeton University Press - £18.99
''We are not suited to the long perspectives,'' wrote Phillip Larkin, that quintessentially English poet. But Milosz came by his telescopic vision naturally, or rather, through the force of circumstance.
The epiphany is of course consistent with his entire vision: his desire to grasp the essence of things; his belief that meaning inheres in the concrete and the particular and proceeds from it to deeper understanding. But given the circumstances in which it takes place, his description of the terrifying experience is almost eerily impersonal. Perhaps it is possible to understand his detachment as something that happens in moments of great danger: a kind of absenting of yourself from yourself, standing beside or outside or even above yourself, which has been described by many people who have faced a deadly threat.
It's not the easiest thing trying to assimilate the all pervasive, dense depths of Czeslaw Milosz's literary talent as a poet, and likewise (or perhaps, more of caveat) the analytical complexity of this profoundly honest and rather beautiful book.
Reason being, On Czeslaw Milosz, is a true treasure to both read and embrace.
It's almost as if a reminder of a whole new awakening.
And beginning:
And yet the books will be there on the
shelves, separate beings…
...So much more durable
That we are, whose frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses,
perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it's still a strange
pageant,
Women's dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the
valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves,
well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance,
heights.
('And Yet The Books').
Authoress, Eva Hoffman, clearly understands and relates to so much of the anguish amid that of Milosz's writing. She is naturally reflective of his comportment, which may in part be due to the fact, that she too, is a Pole.
Either way, the following – which is unbearably tragic, yet heroic with regards the poem 'In Warsaw' – wholly underlines as much:
''''You swore never to touch/The deep wounds of your nation'': Milosz was aware of the strain of martyrology in Poland's self-image – not entirely unfounded, given its history of partitions, Siberian exile, and violent Russian domination – as well as a tendency to Romantic heroism, which at the beginning of the war led the Polish cavalry to ride out against German tanks to the accompaniment of Chopin's ''Heroic'' polonaise being broadcast on Polish radio. He was temperamentally averse to such transports of patriotism, but in the poem, restrained by the frame of form, are the anguish and sorrow he did not allow himself in most of his prose writings about the war. Why didn't he? […]. The implication of the poem's powerful metaphors are not reducible to literal explanations, but the force of feeling that drove Milosz's poetry – and which is so evident here – surely exacted its price in the pain of pity and love as well as in scorn and rage.''
As Ruth Padel, author of Beethoven Variations: Poems on a Life has since, succinctly stated: ''This brilliant and very personal book offers unique insights into one of the twentieth century's most iconic poets. Drawing out Milosz's experience of exile, the ideas that shaped his imagination, and the almost sacred significance he found in nature, Hoffman illuminates a body of poetry rooted in a divided Europe: 'A home that refused to acknowledge itself as a whole.'''
This very important book does indeed draw on the enormous legacy of Milosz's profoundly, all-encompassing canon. A wonderful body of work which always seemed to somehow address society's many challenges – especially in relation to pain, anguish and truthfulness.
The result of which began in an obscure corner of another Europe, yet concluded with a poet giving us the world.
David Marx
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