Milosz is a difficult prose writer - not because he uses a jargon
or intricate structures or ephemeral imagery, but because his ideas
seem not to develop at all. . . until suddenly there's his
conclusion: dynamic, whole, learned, modulated, staring you in the
face. Here, in Harvard's Norton lectures, Milosz seems at first to
meander. He discusses his cousin O. V. de L. Milosz's definition of
poetry as "a passionate pursuit of the Real"; he asks, "Is
non-eschatological poetry possible?"; he proposes that this
century's poetry may be based on biology (Darwin, DNA, etc.); he
scores classicism for fettering the poet's amorous desire for the
world. All interesting - but going where? Polish poetry is then
offered as an example of a poetry which, through historical
tragedy, has had to overcome alienation, the bohemian/philistine
split. And now the argument finally begins to appear: "The poetic
art changes with the amount of background reality embraced by the
poet's consciousness." That Western poetry's background reality
consists essentially of ruins, Milosz accepts without sadness;
realizing it, he offers, can turn us away from biological illusions
of self-sufficiency and back toward history - civilization (failed
or not), interdependence, humanity. Milosz, neither Marxist nor
reactionary, doesn't easily despair. (It's too bad, he says, that a
Nicaragua can't yet learn lessons from a Poland - but historical
time is non-parallel, and always will be.) It's dazzling to see
what seems like diffidence turning into virile coherence (like
Milosz's poetry), to hear a poet speaking of reality without fear
or maneuvers or myths. Notable - but demanding and slow to take
hold. (Kirkus Reviews)
Czeslaw Milosz, winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature,
reflects upon poetry's testimony to the events of our tumultuous
time. From the special perspectives of "my corner of Europe," a
classical and Catholic education, a serious encounter with Marxism,
and a life marked by journeys and exiles, Milosz has developed a
sensibility at once warm and detached, flooded with specific memory
yet never hermetic or provincial. Milosz addresses many of the
major problems of contemporary poetry, beginning with the pessimism
and negativism prompted by reductionist interpretations of man's
animal origins. He examines the tendency of poets since Mallarme to
isolate themselves from society, and stresses the need for the poet
to make himself part of the great human family. One chapter is
devoted to the tension between classicism and realism; Milosz
believes poetry should be "a passionate pursuit of the real." In
"Ruins and Poetry" he looks at poems constructed from the wreckage
of a civilization, specifically that of Poland after the horrors of
World War II. Finally, he expresses optimism for the world, based
on a hoped-for better understanding of the lessons of modern
science, on the emerging recognition of humanity's oneness, and on
mankind's growing awareness of its own history.
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