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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780810131774 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Northwestern University Press |
| Publication date: | 08/10/2015 |
| Pages: | 272 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d) |
About the Author
STANLEY BILL is a lecturer in Polish studies at the University of Cambridge.
Read an Excerpt
Milosz and the Problem of Evil
By Lukasz Tischner, Stanley Bill
Northwestern University Press
Copyright © 2013 Lukasz TischnerAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8101-3177-4
CHAPTER 1
The World
Undoubtedly the best examples of Milosz's "books of innocence" are the poems comprising the early cycle, The World: Naive Poems (Swiat: Poema naiwne, 1943). These works almost perfectly fulfill the criteria for the "analogy of innocence." Indeed, it is no accident that critics have pointed to similarities with Blake's Songs of Innocence or Traherne's Centuries of Meditations, while even Milosz himself has admitted to these sources of inspiration. In The World, we find a father-sage endowed with magical powers (almost like Prospero), children protagonists, forest groves (linden and oak), a garden, a bird kingdom, and perhaps even forest spirits or sprites ("invisible kings"). Nevertheless, we cannot entirely encapsulate the world depicted in these "naive poems" within Frye's formula of a world that is "neither totally alive, like the apocalyptic one, nor mostly dead, like ours: it is an animistic world, full of elemental spirits." Milosz's "romance idealization" is very discreet. In general, we might characterize it as a childish point of view or a "superstitious" provincialism.
The cycle also fits into the framework of a genre that Frye describes as the "recognition poem." Though the term "recognition" refers here to lyric and epic (rather than dramatic) works, it is close to the Aristotelian category of "anagnorisis." According to Frye, the recognition poem "reverses the usual associations of dream and waking, so that it is experience that seems to be the nightmare and the vision that seems to be reality." If we accept this genealogical determination, then The World shares various affinities with T. S. Eliot's "Marina," the majority of Rainer Maria Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus, as well as Henry Vaughan's poems.
However, various "apparitions" still throw their shadows onto The World. According to Marian Stala: "Successive readings reveal an increasing resistance from the text and a growing ambiguity of words and images. The brightness of The World becomes difficult and opaque. It turns out to be a dark brightness. This paradox points towards a fundamental problem in interpreting the poem — namely, why does this brightness eventually take on a certain obscurity and thus demand explanation?" But is this impression really so overwhelming? Let us try to follow Stala's intuition.
First of all, we should recall the modal framework into which Milosz has inscribed the whole cycle. The subtitle "naive poems" ("poema naiwne") — with its archaic use of the plural "poema" in the original Polish — gives a clear sign of ironic distance, a peculiar abstraction from the historical here and now. This ironic game is unmasked by the inscription included at the end of the work — "Warszawa, 1943." The tension between these two hints for the reader allows us to assert unequivocally that the author did not lose his senses, and that he really "experienced the occupation in the same categories in which it has usually been interpreted." Accordingly, we might accept Jacek Lukasiewicz's hypothesis that the "continuity" of the depicted world and its metaphysical order comes into being at the cost of a "reductive, direct or indirect archaization (infantilization might also fill the same reductive role here)."
A Guide to The World
Is The World subject to any single preeminent structural principle? Does the order in which the separate parts of the cycle appear tell us something about the author's central idea? We might even risk the assumption that we are dealing with the rudiments of a storyline. Perhaps — as Marian Stala claims — the different parts of the poem arrange themselves according to the logic of memories, which would weaken any chain of cause and effect or chronological order. In this way, we would find ourselves dealing with at least two "narrators" — one who adopts the point of view of the little protagonists of the poem, and another who remembers, with much greater cognitive capacities.
The cycle begins with "The Road." As in any good realist novel (or perhaps a film?), we first become acquainted with the place of the action — a "green valley" (this expression brings to mind biblical symbolism) and a road leading home from school. We meet the main characters — a brother, sister, and their father (a good farmer leaning on his garden hoe in front of the house). Characteristically for Milosz's descriptive technique, we find "close-ups" (of a pencil case, the crumbs of a roll, a copper penny, leaves) interwoven with a "bird's-eye view" (long clouds floating over the trees). Next the narrator moves towards "The Gate," and permits himself the following anecdote: "Sztachety z wierzchu malowane bialo: / Biale i ostre, zawsze jak plomyki. / Dziwne, ze ptakom to nie przeszkadzalo, / Raz nawet usiadl na nich golab dziki" ("The pickets are painted white at the top. / White and sharp, like tiny flames. / Strange that this never bothered the birds. / Even a wild pigeon once perched there" [NCP 37]). Then we wander on with him to "The Porch," where we spend a little more time, as the brother and sister sit down to draw: "Klecza rysujac wojny i pogonie. / I pomagaja rózowym jezykiem / Wielkim okretom, z których jeden tonie" ("Here, at a tiny table, brother and sister / Kneel, drawing scenes of battle and pursuit. / And with their pink tongues try to help / Great warships,one of which is sinking" [NCP 38]). Next the narrator's steps take us into "The Dining Room," where dinner time has arrived (the cuckoo clock calls three times). Here we meet the fourth character — the mother.
In the case of the later "scenes," it is difficult to establish any strict chronology or to determine precisely who is speaking. A candle flame or gas lamp illuminates "The Stairs" — if we assume that the temporal order remains intact, then the world has fallen into darkness. In the next "scene" we probably see the boy, who is looking at the illustrations in a book. A moment later (if we assume that the temporal order still holds), we admire the majesty of the father murmuring his incantations in the sunlight. But were we already in the library earlier when scrutinizing the "Pictures" with the boy (or the girl)? Or did we only enter its domain together with the father? Either way, we soon break away entirely from the Earth, as we listen to the father, who gazes down at Europe "as if on the palm of a hand." In "Father Explains," we learn where Warsaw, Prague, Italy, Rome, and Paris lie. Perhaps he could easily show the other continents as well, but he does not wish to put his little listeners to sleep with a surfeit of information. The supernatural (though apparently self-evident) ability to observe the Earth from a "bird's-eye view" (or perhaps from a satellite) shatters the previous interpretive order. By introducing a fairytale or fantastical impulse, the speaker prepares the way for the "Parable of the Poppy." Here Milosz uses one of his favorite devices (the reversed telescope), abandoning the admittedly diminished, though still interplanetary perspective in favor of a "close-up" or "enlargement" of the smallest things — the "peony lands." Thus we return "to Earth" (in the company of beetles) and help the mother as she bends down over a flower bed. A moment later, we finally cross the border of "obscurity," which we have already tested several times (there is no way to maintain here that the fairy-tale or fantastical impulse still remains in force).
Why do the poems "Faith," "Hope," and "Love" appear precisely here? Is it the mother who pronounces these lessons, as Stala and Lukasiewicz have claimed? Perhaps. However, this still does not answer the question of why these poems on the theological virtues appear at this particular juncture.
We should also note that this triptych essentially separates the two main sections of the cycle as a whole. Until now, the world unveiled before our eyes has been immutable. With the help of the "narrator" (along with the father), we have viewed it from various perspectives, but these perspectives have remained unchanged in any given poem. Though the vision of the world has been relational, it has also been clear and distinct — to use the words of Descartes. The act of cognition has not met with any resistance from illusion or subsequent doubt. It has reached straight to the essence of things, while their dynamics have largely escaped attention. But suddenly the lessons and warnings resound:
"Chocby sie oczy zamknelo, marzylo, / Na swiecie bedzie tylko to, co bylo," "Co nie ma cienia, istniec nie ma sily," "ziemia nie jest snem, lecz zywym cialem, / ... wzrok, dotyk ani sluch nie klamie," "popatrzec na siebie,/ Tak jak sie patrzy na obce nam rzeczy,/. ... A kto tak patrzy, cho c sam o tym nie wie, / Ze zmartwien róznych swoje serce leczy". ... "To nic, ze czasem nie wie, czemu sluzyc: / Nie ten najlepiej sluzy, kto rozumie."
"Even if you close your eyes and dream up things / The world will remain as it has always been," "What has no shadow has no strength to live," "The earth is not a dream but living flesh, / That sign, touch and hearing do not lie," "To learn to look at yourself / The way one looks at distant things, / ... / And whoever sees that way heals his heart, / Without knowing it from various ills," "It doesn't matter whether he knows what he serves: / Who serves best doesn't always understand." (NCP 48–50)
These words of wisdom are clearly intended to equip the children with a knowledge that will prevent them from going astray. After all, only in the second part of the cycle (after "Love") do they set off on their own independent journey into the darkness of night — into the unknown. The final poems of the cycle are the most mysterious. For why should the children set off after dark on an expedition into the forest? Why does this not arouse any protest from the father, who calmly declares after finding them (perhaps suggesting that he has been tracking the children's activities): "Tu jestem. Skadze ten lek nierozumny?" ("Here I am. Why this senseless fear?" [NCP 54]). But where exactly is "here"?
Everything suggests that the final part of the cycle evades any realistic interpretation (or any interpretation that would take fairy-tale or fantastical elements into account), while the symbolic meanings clearly shift into the foreground. However, this "excess of sense" does not appear quite so unexpectedly. Marian Stala makes this point with great acuity, revealing various affinities between The World and the poem of initiation. We shall devote more space to this question later.
Thanks to the theological virtues, the wanderer is able to to recognize the world in motion, and thus he does not go astray. "The Excursion to the Forest" comes to represent a worldly test, while the darkness perhaps symbolizes sin or evil. Four poems — "The Excursion to the Forest," "The Bird Kingdom," "Fear," and "Recovery" — fit into the parabolic framework of wandering and going astray. Why have I also included "The Bird Kingdom"? In fact, this "digression" about birds is an important contrapuntal element of the "parable," since it introduces an aerial perspective ("from a world that is bright, beautiful, warm, and free") beyond the earthly darkness. The limited nature of the human point of view also reveals itself here. Though the night has "swallowed" the earth "forever," the birds have escaped.
The final poem of the cycle is a peculiar hymn to the Sun, praising the creative power of light. Here for the first time the first-person plural appears without inverted commas: "Niechaj przykleknie, ... / I patrzy w promien od ziemi odbity. Tam znajdzie wszystko, cosmy porzucili: / Gwiazdy i róze, i zmierzchy i swity" ("Let him kneel down ... / And look at the light reflected by the ground. There he will find everything we have lost" [NCP 55]). This is a puzzling shift. We should note that the last line corresponds with an important passage from "Hope": "Gdybysmy lepiej i madrzej patrzyli, / Jeszcze kwiat nowy i gwiazde niejedna / W ogrodzie swiata bysmy zobaczyli" ("Could we but look more clearly and wisely / We might discover somewhere in the garden / A strange new flower and an unnamed star" [NCP 49]). In other words, those in whose name the speaker makes his pronouncements have lost hope. The speaking persona perhaps refers here to a certain self-evident shared historical experience or communal fate. There is a distinct yearning for what has been lost. But does the nostalgia for dusks and dawns spring from the sense that the night has "swallowed" the world "forever" — as the annotation "Warsaw, 1943" would seem to suggest? Quite possibly. We can only say for certain that the "we" supplies a context for the work (a sense of bitterness and nostalgia for the past in both onto- and phylogenetic dimensions), while also disclosing the rules for decoding the irony of the text.
Before we examine the shadows on the bright outline of the world, we should devote a few words to the cycle's literary connections. Various critics have already pointed out that — apart from the presence of Blake and Traherne — The World also reveals the influence of the poets collected in The Chinese Flute, and even of Maria Konopnicka. Aleksander Fiut has detected polemical tones directed against the resistance poetry of occupied Warsaw. I would add two more possibilities to these legitimate intuitions (in which only the attempt to hierarchize the influences might arouse certain doubts). Thanks to Milosz's zealous activity as a translator, we can now easily assess the influence exerted on the poetic form of The World by Oscar Milosz, who died in 1939. Indeed, it seems that we might characterize the bond between the brother, sister, mother and father as a form of "Storge," since this Greek term — adapted by Swedenborg and adopted by Oscar Milosz — means "love, tenderness and attachment, especially of parents towards their offspring." Let us quote from Oscar Milosz's poem, Storge:
And let us not forget, Storge, that what occupies us here is neither the mystery of spiritual affinities nor mystical or emotional life nor the sphere of the unknown into which we must fall tomorrow. We are talking about the physical matter that surrounds us, the matter that we shall be for many years in the grave. The table on which I rest my elbow and the inkwell in which I dip my pen place my brain, which is wholly in motion, before an irresolvable task. As a son of man, I have nowhere to lay my head. No place. And doubtless it would help me little if I knew whence I had come or where I was going. But I know not where I am, and yet I am — I who love! For everything else is vanity, smoke and shadow. But you, Storge, who are for me both motion and place, and I, betrothed to you in this space, in this matter that is now infinity, in this measured time that is now eternity, we are. You, Storge, and I — we are. And though lunacy or madness may dictate this to me, I assert that within this indefinite, unlocatable universe, I know one certain place where reason is lost — and that place is my love.
Do we not find here a version — somewhat tainted by modernist emphasis — of the poetic philosophy of The World? This attractive interpretive context would surely weaken the well-worn conviction in the dominant Thomist inspirations of The World.
Another less obvious trail leads us to Boleslaw Lesmian. Milosz's aversion to modernism (especially its earlier phase) is extremely well known. Indeed, everything suggests that he underrated LeSmian even as late as the postwar years, though he clearly knew both Shadowy Potion (Napój cienisty) and Forest Happenings (Dziejba lesna). We might even risk the hypothesis that — despite his prejudice, and perhaps subconsciously — he conducted a kind of dialogue with Lesmian. Let us listen closely to Lesmian's melodies from Shadowy Potion:
Juz nic nie widze — zasypiam juz
W ciszy i w grozie.
Znika mi slonce w zalomach wzgórz,
Bóg znika — w brzozie ...
Ginie mi z oczu umowny kwiat
W chwiejnej dolinie.
Gdzie sie podziewa ten caly swiat,
Gdy z oczu ginie?
Czy korzystajac z tego, zem zwarl
Rzesy na mgnienie–
Znuzony dreszczem i lzami czar
Znicestwia w cienie?
Czy wypoczywa od barw i zlud
Popod snu brama,
Wznoszac bolesnie w wiecznosc i w chlód
Twarz nie te sama? ...
Nie, nie! Przy tobie, jak dawniej, trwa
Smiertelny, bujny!
Jest tu, gdzie zgroza, niewiara twa
I sen twój czujny!
("Niewiara")
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Milosz and the Problem of Evil by Lukasz Tischner, Stanley Bill. Copyright © 2013 Lukasz Tischner. Excerpted by permission of Northwestern University Press.
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Table of Contents
Abbreviations for Works Czeslaw Milosz xi
Introduction xiii
Prelude Tainted Speech: A Guide to The Land of Ulro 3
Part 1 Books of Innocence
Chapter 1 The World 23
Chapter 2 The Issa Valley 41
Part 2 Books of Experience
Chapter 3 A Treatise on Morals 89
Chapter 4 A Treatise on Poetry 113
Part 3 From the Rising of the Sun; or, Toward the Book
Conclusion 191
Postscript 195
Notes 223
Bibliography 243