East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures, 2020
This article shows how Poland’s ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), is attempting to apply its g... more This article shows how Poland’s ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), is attempting to apply its general strategy of “elite replacement” in a modified way to civil society. Since independent civil society organizations are not subject to arbitrary state control of appointments (unlike public institutions), this strategy has required a more complex dual approach of pressure and promotion. Organizations perceived as hostile to the party and its values have been subject to the withdrawal of state support and smear campaigns. By contrast, organizations that are politically or ideologically linked to the party have found support in the form of new public funds and other institutional assistance. This article examines the practical functioning and consequences of these processes through two main examples: (1) a state-sponsored campaign against one of Poland’s largest independent charity organizations, the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity and (2) the funding of multiple right-wing NGOs ...
Chapter 1 examines Miłosz’s poetic attempts to salvage a non-bodily, “transcendent” dimension of ... more Chapter 1 examines Miłosz’s poetic attempts to salvage a non-bodily, “transcendent” dimension of human identity from reductively materialist perspectives. It begins with a brief introduction of his understanding of the “death of God” in Western culture, before presenting a sustained interpretation of a poem exemplifying his own resistance—an uncertain defense of transcendent human “meaning,” partly represented by poetry itself. This discussion of poetry’s mission is followed by a more detailed analysis of the stakes as Miłosz conceived them in various prose reflections on the political and literary consequences of reductive materialism, including its supposed role in the mass violence of the twentieth century. Finally, the chapter discusses Miłosz’s positive reconstructions of a “vertical” aspect of the human self that soars above the physical body. In some cases, this component of human identity reflects a secular notion of “consciousness.” However, the Polish poet also develops a ...
Chapter 3 examines Miłosz’s positive representations of the body, beginning with an interpretatio... more Chapter 3 examines Miłosz’s positive representations of the body, beginning with an interpretation of one of his earliest lyrics, in which the human subject ecstatically identifies with the material world through the rhythm of his blood. In subsequent sections, it discusses his poetic exploration of the bodily dimensions of faith, the emotion of wonder, morality, and the human relation with God. Miłosz finds in the body the most authentic sources of the self, but also of a human connection with the otherworldly divine. In this way, he returns to the central significance of incarnation in Christian thought, with its “crossing” of the symbolically “vertical” and “horizontal” dimensions. In doing so, he also presents religious belief—at least for himself—as instinctive and natural, almost written into the code of the body and blood. Though Miłosz rejects scientifically reductive explanations of religion, his own ideas anticipate some of the most recent theories of the embodied nature o...
Chapter 2 focuses on Miłosz’s theory of the political consequences of the dualist split between a... more Chapter 2 focuses on Miłosz’s theory of the political consequences of the dualist split between an incorporeal core of the self and the trap of the body. After an introductory close reading of a key poem, focusing on Manichaean “hatred of the flesh,” the chapter examines the persistent motif of consciousness in front of the mirror, contemplating the reflection of the “thing” of its deteriorating, and aging, body. From this individual perspective, the chapter turns to the collective dimension of the same self-objectification through analysis of Miłosz’s multiple poetic images of the human species as “one flesh” from which the “I” strives to separate itself. The chapter concludes with Miłosz’s gathering sense from the 1950s onward that this split version of subjectivity—like the reductive materialist view to which it responds—is both destructive to his poetic vocation and politically dangerous. As he explains, the alienated subject’s desire for “purity” and separation from fleshly hum...
Chapter 4 examines Miłosz’s poetic representations of a radical, “feminine” kind of embodiment, p... more Chapter 4 examines Miłosz’s poetic representations of a radical, “feminine” kind of embodiment, positing the weakening or dissolution of the self into the material world. The chapter emphasizes the gendered nature of this “fluid” model of the self, as well as Miłosz’s general association of women with corporeality. It puts his work into dialogue with feminist thinkers who offer tools for a critique of his gender essentialism, while also revealing his unexpected engagement with subversive forms of subjectivity. The chapter elucidates several key moments in which the valence of the traditional gender hierarchy reverses, as a symbolically “feminine” form of corporeal and non-rational subjectivity asserts itself over a metaphysical and rational “masculine” self. The chapter traces this shift through Miłosz’s frequent representations of women in front of the mirror, his development of a “feminine” philosophy of the body, his ambivalent treatment of bodily fluids, and his representation o...
Chapter 5 explores Miłosz’s conviction that poetic language best expresses both the contradiction... more Chapter 5 explores Miłosz’s conviction that poetic language best expresses both the contradictions of the human self as embodied consciousness and the dilemmas of modern religiosity. Through analysis of various works, the chapter reveals a series of productive conflicts within Miłosz’s poetics: between rhythmic and discursive language, but also between several different types of rhythm. The chapter pays particular attention to a distinction between traditional metrical rhythm and “sense rhythm,” regulated by syntax and the breath. In these confrontations, he seeks new poetic forms that would better capture the underlying, fluid “reality” of the body, despite the basic “non-adherence” of language to material existence. Finally, the chapter elucidates Miłosz’s characterization of poetry and religious ritual as parallel forms of human meaning stretched between the inexpressible body below and the inaccessible realm of God above. Through the “ritual” of poetry, he aims to unite these tw...
Poezja czesława miłosza – od najwcześniejszej aż po końcową, religijną fazę – jest konsekwentnie ... more Poezja czesława miłosza – od najwcześniejszej aż po końcową, religijną fazę – jest konsekwentnie samozwrotna. nie dziwi zatem wcale, że jednym z najczęściej powracających obrazów w jego dziele poetyckim jest osoba samotnie przypatrująca się swojemu ciału w lustrze. czasami tą osobą jest, bliski samemu miłoszowi, podmiot liryczny medytujący nad burzliwością życia oraz skutkami, jakie upływ czasu pozostawia na fizycznej formie ludzkiego ciała: „rysy twarzy topnieją jak na woskowej kukle zanurzonej w ogniu. / a kto zgodzi się mieć w lustrze tylko twarz człowieka?” w wielu innych wierszach wędrowny duch miłoszowej poetyckiej świadomości przedstawia odbiorcy obraz kobiety przyglądającej się sobie w lustrze i badającej przy tym rękami swoje ciało. w wierszu Rozbieranie Justyny podmiot zdaje się patrzeć oczami bohaterki Nad Niemnem orzeszkowej: „Dotykając twego ciężkiego, czarnego warkocza, / który właśnie rozpuszczasz, ważąc w dłoni / twoje obfite, na pewno, piersi, patrząc w lustrze / na...
In 2016, Ukrainian historians uncovered a previously unknown set of propaganda illustrations prod... more In 2016, Ukrainian historians uncovered a previously unknown set of propaganda illustrations produced by the Polish-Jewish writer and artist Bruno Schulz (1892–1942) for the Soviet newspaper, Bil'shovits'ka Pravda (Bolshevik Truth) in 1940–41 during the occupation of eastern Poland. This article presents the first comprehensive interpretations of the newly discovered materials in their social, political and historical contexts. The article uses a range of contextual evidence and interpretive approaches to argue that the illustrations represented a type of artistic mimicry, as Schulz resituated himself in new social and political circumstances. The article also argues that Schulz may have included subversive content in some of the illustrations.
This article proposes that the genesis of Polish poet Czesław Miłosz’s frequently discussed ‘Mani... more This article proposes that the genesis of Polish poet Czesław Miłosz’s frequently discussed ‘Manichaean’ worldview was closely tied to his engagement with Russian religious thought and his childhood experiences of Russian history. Subsequently, Miłosz constructed an idiosyncratic theory inscribing a variant of the ‘Manichaean’ heresy into the historical development of Russian culture, linking this religious tradition to the rise of Bolshevism. The author argues that Miłosz partly derived his ‘Neo-Manichaean’ theory of Russian culture from certain prominent Polish intellectuals in interwar Wilno, and later used it to explain his own political choices in the face of Soviet power.
In this paper, I explore the central event in the development of Dostoevsky’s last positive “hero... more In this paper, I explore the central event in the development of Dostoevsky’s last positive “hero,” Alyosha Karamazov – namely, the untimely decay of Father Zossima’s body. Why does this event form a “crisis and turning point in [Alyosha’s] spiritual development,” as the narrator insists? Why is the monk’s subordination to the laws of material nature so significant? How does this question relate to the broader problem of “being in the world”? How does the human body appear more generally in The Brothers Karamazov and how does its depiction differ from representations of corporeality elsewhere in Dostoevsky’s work? Above all, I take up the central problem of the human “self” as it presents itself in Dostoevsky’s writings. What is the relation of the “self” to corporeal identity? How can the Christian doctrine of individual corporeal resurrection remain viable if the body must disintegrate into the indifferent matter of the earth? How enduring is the phenomenon of an individual human “I”? Dostoevsky tackles these theological and philosophical questions in narrative form through Alyosha’s encounter with Zossima’s corpse. I use Julia Kristeva’s concept of “abjection” and Caroline Bynum’s work on the body in Christianity to underpin my arguments, while providing close analysis of both the central episode from The Brothers Karamazov and other key Dostoevskian writings.
Published in "Slavic and East European Journal" 58.4 (Winter 2014): 645-662.
Broadly speaking, t... more Published in "Slavic and East European Journal" 58.4 (Winter 2014): 645-662.
Broadly speaking, the scholarship on Czesław Miłosz has tended to privilege the transcendental aspiration of his writings, in the face of which the physical body inevitably appears as a tomb or temptation. In this paper, I emphasize a more positive Miłoszean attitude to the body, suggesting a poetic solution to the problem of the metaphysical “I” alienated from its own corporeal existence. Specifically, I analyze certain key passages in which the potential dissolution of the integral, metaphysical and traditionally “masculine” subject appears in a distinctly positive light. Particularly in the latter part of his poetic career, Miłosz increasingly embraces a “feminine” and corporeal model of what I term the “weak self,” which he links both with certain highly traditional archetypes of “femininity” and with the basic nature of his own poetic art. Poetry itself is “feminine” in gender according to Miłosz, since it “opens itself and waits for a creator, a spirit, a daemon.” I argue that this peculiar poetic “feminism” is simultaneously conservative and radical, since it tends to express itself through schematic stereotypes, while potentially re-evaluating them. Finally, I explore the ways in which Miłosz’s “feminism” raises fundamental questions about how poetic language functions.
Published in "Schulz/Forum" 4 (2014).
This paper critically examines Bruno Schulz's popular ... more Published in "Schulz/Forum" 4 (2014).
This paper critically examines Bruno Schulz's popular status as a writer of Poland's former multi-cultural "borderland," proposing that his writings do not easily support this image, as he shows little interest in historical cultures (Polish, Jewish, Ukrainian) at all. Instead, the author proposes that Schulz is a writer of the "ontological borderland," where boundaries between cultures and states are irrelevant, since they are just as impermanent as any other instances of form.
Published in "Schulz/Forum" 2 (2013).
This paper treats Bruno Schulz’s story “Cinnamon Shops” ... more Published in "Schulz/Forum" 2 (2013).
This paper treats Bruno Schulz’s story “Cinnamon Shops” as a depiction of two entirely different models of writing: the first disturbingly real for Schulz, and the second more idealized, or even nostalgic. The first model presents writing as a process of constantly deferred meaning, as a wandering through a labyrinth of shifting city streets or human signs, whose “configuration,” as the story’s narrator observes, “fails to match the expected image.” The second, more idealized model was described by Schulz himself in his famous 1935 essay for Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz as the proper goal or aspiration of art:
Its role is to be a probe sunk into the nameless. The artist is an apparatus registering processes in the depths, where value is formed.
The paper presents the culminating scene of “Cinnamon Shops” as a fantasized version of this theory in praxis: the artist sinks his probe, or rides his metaphysical horse and carriage, into the nameless realm, from the labyrinth of language into a forest of meaninglessness which at the same time forms the hidden source of all meaning. The boy protagonist of the story must leave the city, surrender to unconscious will and journey deep into a winter forest at night. There he finds not darkness, cold and death, but sparkling lights, a secret spring and the signs of new life in the dead of winter. However, this journey – much like Schulz’s theory of art and writing more generally – remains in sharp contrast both with the defective version of reality presented in much of his other fiction and with the alternative model of writing as a hopeless search for an ultimate reality that can never be found. This paper examines the conflict between these two visions.
East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures, 2020
This article shows how Poland’s ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), is attempting to apply its g... more This article shows how Poland’s ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), is attempting to apply its general strategy of “elite replacement” in a modified way to civil society. Since independent civil society organizations are not subject to arbitrary state control of appointments (unlike public institutions), this strategy has required a more complex dual approach of pressure and promotion. Organizations perceived as hostile to the party and its values have been subject to the withdrawal of state support and smear campaigns. By contrast, organizations that are politically or ideologically linked to the party have found support in the form of new public funds and other institutional assistance. This article examines the practical functioning and consequences of these processes through two main examples: (1) a state-sponsored campaign against one of Poland’s largest independent charity organizations, the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity and (2) the funding of multiple right-wing NGOs ...
Chapter 1 examines Miłosz’s poetic attempts to salvage a non-bodily, “transcendent” dimension of ... more Chapter 1 examines Miłosz’s poetic attempts to salvage a non-bodily, “transcendent” dimension of human identity from reductively materialist perspectives. It begins with a brief introduction of his understanding of the “death of God” in Western culture, before presenting a sustained interpretation of a poem exemplifying his own resistance—an uncertain defense of transcendent human “meaning,” partly represented by poetry itself. This discussion of poetry’s mission is followed by a more detailed analysis of the stakes as Miłosz conceived them in various prose reflections on the political and literary consequences of reductive materialism, including its supposed role in the mass violence of the twentieth century. Finally, the chapter discusses Miłosz’s positive reconstructions of a “vertical” aspect of the human self that soars above the physical body. In some cases, this component of human identity reflects a secular notion of “consciousness.” However, the Polish poet also develops a ...
Chapter 3 examines Miłosz’s positive representations of the body, beginning with an interpretatio... more Chapter 3 examines Miłosz’s positive representations of the body, beginning with an interpretation of one of his earliest lyrics, in which the human subject ecstatically identifies with the material world through the rhythm of his blood. In subsequent sections, it discusses his poetic exploration of the bodily dimensions of faith, the emotion of wonder, morality, and the human relation with God. Miłosz finds in the body the most authentic sources of the self, but also of a human connection with the otherworldly divine. In this way, he returns to the central significance of incarnation in Christian thought, with its “crossing” of the symbolically “vertical” and “horizontal” dimensions. In doing so, he also presents religious belief—at least for himself—as instinctive and natural, almost written into the code of the body and blood. Though Miłosz rejects scientifically reductive explanations of religion, his own ideas anticipate some of the most recent theories of the embodied nature o...
Chapter 2 focuses on Miłosz’s theory of the political consequences of the dualist split between a... more Chapter 2 focuses on Miłosz’s theory of the political consequences of the dualist split between an incorporeal core of the self and the trap of the body. After an introductory close reading of a key poem, focusing on Manichaean “hatred of the flesh,” the chapter examines the persistent motif of consciousness in front of the mirror, contemplating the reflection of the “thing” of its deteriorating, and aging, body. From this individual perspective, the chapter turns to the collective dimension of the same self-objectification through analysis of Miłosz’s multiple poetic images of the human species as “one flesh” from which the “I” strives to separate itself. The chapter concludes with Miłosz’s gathering sense from the 1950s onward that this split version of subjectivity—like the reductive materialist view to which it responds—is both destructive to his poetic vocation and politically dangerous. As he explains, the alienated subject’s desire for “purity” and separation from fleshly hum...
Chapter 4 examines Miłosz’s poetic representations of a radical, “feminine” kind of embodiment, p... more Chapter 4 examines Miłosz’s poetic representations of a radical, “feminine” kind of embodiment, positing the weakening or dissolution of the self into the material world. The chapter emphasizes the gendered nature of this “fluid” model of the self, as well as Miłosz’s general association of women with corporeality. It puts his work into dialogue with feminist thinkers who offer tools for a critique of his gender essentialism, while also revealing his unexpected engagement with subversive forms of subjectivity. The chapter elucidates several key moments in which the valence of the traditional gender hierarchy reverses, as a symbolically “feminine” form of corporeal and non-rational subjectivity asserts itself over a metaphysical and rational “masculine” self. The chapter traces this shift through Miłosz’s frequent representations of women in front of the mirror, his development of a “feminine” philosophy of the body, his ambivalent treatment of bodily fluids, and his representation o...
Chapter 5 explores Miłosz’s conviction that poetic language best expresses both the contradiction... more Chapter 5 explores Miłosz’s conviction that poetic language best expresses both the contradictions of the human self as embodied consciousness and the dilemmas of modern religiosity. Through analysis of various works, the chapter reveals a series of productive conflicts within Miłosz’s poetics: between rhythmic and discursive language, but also between several different types of rhythm. The chapter pays particular attention to a distinction between traditional metrical rhythm and “sense rhythm,” regulated by syntax and the breath. In these confrontations, he seeks new poetic forms that would better capture the underlying, fluid “reality” of the body, despite the basic “non-adherence” of language to material existence. Finally, the chapter elucidates Miłosz’s characterization of poetry and religious ritual as parallel forms of human meaning stretched between the inexpressible body below and the inaccessible realm of God above. Through the “ritual” of poetry, he aims to unite these tw...
Poezja czesława miłosza – od najwcześniejszej aż po końcową, religijną fazę – jest konsekwentnie ... more Poezja czesława miłosza – od najwcześniejszej aż po końcową, religijną fazę – jest konsekwentnie samozwrotna. nie dziwi zatem wcale, że jednym z najczęściej powracających obrazów w jego dziele poetyckim jest osoba samotnie przypatrująca się swojemu ciału w lustrze. czasami tą osobą jest, bliski samemu miłoszowi, podmiot liryczny medytujący nad burzliwością życia oraz skutkami, jakie upływ czasu pozostawia na fizycznej formie ludzkiego ciała: „rysy twarzy topnieją jak na woskowej kukle zanurzonej w ogniu. / a kto zgodzi się mieć w lustrze tylko twarz człowieka?” w wielu innych wierszach wędrowny duch miłoszowej poetyckiej świadomości przedstawia odbiorcy obraz kobiety przyglądającej się sobie w lustrze i badającej przy tym rękami swoje ciało. w wierszu Rozbieranie Justyny podmiot zdaje się patrzeć oczami bohaterki Nad Niemnem orzeszkowej: „Dotykając twego ciężkiego, czarnego warkocza, / który właśnie rozpuszczasz, ważąc w dłoni / twoje obfite, na pewno, piersi, patrząc w lustrze / na...
In 2016, Ukrainian historians uncovered a previously unknown set of propaganda illustrations prod... more In 2016, Ukrainian historians uncovered a previously unknown set of propaganda illustrations produced by the Polish-Jewish writer and artist Bruno Schulz (1892–1942) for the Soviet newspaper, Bil'shovits'ka Pravda (Bolshevik Truth) in 1940–41 during the occupation of eastern Poland. This article presents the first comprehensive interpretations of the newly discovered materials in their social, political and historical contexts. The article uses a range of contextual evidence and interpretive approaches to argue that the illustrations represented a type of artistic mimicry, as Schulz resituated himself in new social and political circumstances. The article also argues that Schulz may have included subversive content in some of the illustrations.
This article proposes that the genesis of Polish poet Czesław Miłosz’s frequently discussed ‘Mani... more This article proposes that the genesis of Polish poet Czesław Miłosz’s frequently discussed ‘Manichaean’ worldview was closely tied to his engagement with Russian religious thought and his childhood experiences of Russian history. Subsequently, Miłosz constructed an idiosyncratic theory inscribing a variant of the ‘Manichaean’ heresy into the historical development of Russian culture, linking this religious tradition to the rise of Bolshevism. The author argues that Miłosz partly derived his ‘Neo-Manichaean’ theory of Russian culture from certain prominent Polish intellectuals in interwar Wilno, and later used it to explain his own political choices in the face of Soviet power.
In this paper, I explore the central event in the development of Dostoevsky’s last positive “hero... more In this paper, I explore the central event in the development of Dostoevsky’s last positive “hero,” Alyosha Karamazov – namely, the untimely decay of Father Zossima’s body. Why does this event form a “crisis and turning point in [Alyosha’s] spiritual development,” as the narrator insists? Why is the monk’s subordination to the laws of material nature so significant? How does this question relate to the broader problem of “being in the world”? How does the human body appear more generally in The Brothers Karamazov and how does its depiction differ from representations of corporeality elsewhere in Dostoevsky’s work? Above all, I take up the central problem of the human “self” as it presents itself in Dostoevsky’s writings. What is the relation of the “self” to corporeal identity? How can the Christian doctrine of individual corporeal resurrection remain viable if the body must disintegrate into the indifferent matter of the earth? How enduring is the phenomenon of an individual human “I”? Dostoevsky tackles these theological and philosophical questions in narrative form through Alyosha’s encounter with Zossima’s corpse. I use Julia Kristeva’s concept of “abjection” and Caroline Bynum’s work on the body in Christianity to underpin my arguments, while providing close analysis of both the central episode from The Brothers Karamazov and other key Dostoevskian writings.
Published in "Slavic and East European Journal" 58.4 (Winter 2014): 645-662.
Broadly speaking, t... more Published in "Slavic and East European Journal" 58.4 (Winter 2014): 645-662.
Broadly speaking, the scholarship on Czesław Miłosz has tended to privilege the transcendental aspiration of his writings, in the face of which the physical body inevitably appears as a tomb or temptation. In this paper, I emphasize a more positive Miłoszean attitude to the body, suggesting a poetic solution to the problem of the metaphysical “I” alienated from its own corporeal existence. Specifically, I analyze certain key passages in which the potential dissolution of the integral, metaphysical and traditionally “masculine” subject appears in a distinctly positive light. Particularly in the latter part of his poetic career, Miłosz increasingly embraces a “feminine” and corporeal model of what I term the “weak self,” which he links both with certain highly traditional archetypes of “femininity” and with the basic nature of his own poetic art. Poetry itself is “feminine” in gender according to Miłosz, since it “opens itself and waits for a creator, a spirit, a daemon.” I argue that this peculiar poetic “feminism” is simultaneously conservative and radical, since it tends to express itself through schematic stereotypes, while potentially re-evaluating them. Finally, I explore the ways in which Miłosz’s “feminism” raises fundamental questions about how poetic language functions.
Published in "Schulz/Forum" 4 (2014).
This paper critically examines Bruno Schulz's popular ... more Published in "Schulz/Forum" 4 (2014).
This paper critically examines Bruno Schulz's popular status as a writer of Poland's former multi-cultural "borderland," proposing that his writings do not easily support this image, as he shows little interest in historical cultures (Polish, Jewish, Ukrainian) at all. Instead, the author proposes that Schulz is a writer of the "ontological borderland," where boundaries between cultures and states are irrelevant, since they are just as impermanent as any other instances of form.
Published in "Schulz/Forum" 2 (2013).
This paper treats Bruno Schulz’s story “Cinnamon Shops” ... more Published in "Schulz/Forum" 2 (2013).
This paper treats Bruno Schulz’s story “Cinnamon Shops” as a depiction of two entirely different models of writing: the first disturbingly real for Schulz, and the second more idealized, or even nostalgic. The first model presents writing as a process of constantly deferred meaning, as a wandering through a labyrinth of shifting city streets or human signs, whose “configuration,” as the story’s narrator observes, “fails to match the expected image.” The second, more idealized model was described by Schulz himself in his famous 1935 essay for Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz as the proper goal or aspiration of art:
Its role is to be a probe sunk into the nameless. The artist is an apparatus registering processes in the depths, where value is formed.
The paper presents the culminating scene of “Cinnamon Shops” as a fantasized version of this theory in praxis: the artist sinks his probe, or rides his metaphysical horse and carriage, into the nameless realm, from the labyrinth of language into a forest of meaninglessness which at the same time forms the hidden source of all meaning. The boy protagonist of the story must leave the city, surrender to unconscious will and journey deep into a winter forest at night. There he finds not darkness, cold and death, but sparkling lights, a secret spring and the signs of new life in the dead of winter. However, this journey – much like Schulz’s theory of art and writing more generally – remains in sharp contrast both with the defective version of reality presented in much of his other fiction and with the alternative model of writing as a hopeless search for an ultimate reality that can never be found. This paper examines the conflict between these two visions.
This book presents Czesław Miłosz's poetic philosophy of the body as an original defense of relig... more This book presents Czesław Miłosz's poetic philosophy of the body as an original defense of religious faith, transcendence, and the value of the human individual against what he viewed as dangerous modern forms of materialism. The Polish Nobel laureate saw the reductive "biologization" of human life as a root cause of the historical tragedies he had witnessed under Nazi German and Soviet regimes in twentieth-century Central and Eastern Europe. The book argues that his response was not merely to reconstitute spiritual or ideal forms of human identity, which no longer seemed plausible. Instead, he aimed to revalidate the flesh, elaborating his own non-reductive understandings of the self on the basis of the body's deeper meanings. Within the framework of a hesitant Christian faith, Miłosz's poetry and prose often suggest a paradoxical striving toward transcendence precisely through sensual experience. Yet his perspectives on bodily existence are not exclusively affirmative. The book traces his diverse representations of the body from dualist visions that demonize the flesh through to positive images of the body as the source of religious experience, the self, and his own creative faculty. It also examines the complex relations between "masculine" and "feminine" bodies or forms of subjectivity, as Miłosz represents them. Finally, it elucidates his contention that poetry is the best vehicle for conveying these contradictions, because it also combines "disembodied", symbolic meanings with the sensual meanings of sound and rhythm. For Miłosz, the double nature of poetic meaning reflects the fused duality of the human self.
The Routledge World Companion to Polish Literature offers an introduction to Polish literature th... more The Routledge World Companion to Polish Literature offers an introduction to Polish literature through thirty-three case studies, covering works from the Middle Ages up to the present day. Each chapter draws on a text or body of work, examining its historical context, as well as its international reception and position within world literature.
The book presents a dual perspective on Polish literature, combining original readings of key texts with discussions of their two-way connections with other literatures across the globe. With a detailed introduction offering a narrative overview, the book is divided into six sections offering a chronological pathway through the material. Contributors from around the world examine the various cultural exchanges at play, with each chapter including:
Definitions of key terms and brief overviews of historical and political events, literary eras, trends, movements, groups, and institutions for those new to the area Analysis and notes on translations, including their hidden dimensions and potential Textual focus on poetics, such as strategies of composition, style, and genre A range of historical, sociological, political, and economic contexts From medieval song through to the contemporary novel, this book offers an interpretive history of Polish literature, while also positioning its significance within world literature. The detailed introductions make it accessible to beginners in the area, while the original analysis and focused case studies will also be of interest to researchers.
Yale University Press, 2017. A translation of Czesław Miłosz's unfinished novel "The Mountains of... more Yale University Press, 2017. A translation of Czesław Miłosz's unfinished novel "The Mountains of Parnassus" with scholarly introduction.
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Papers by Stanley Bill
Broadly speaking, the scholarship on Czesław Miłosz has tended to privilege the transcendental aspiration of his writings, in the face of which the physical body inevitably appears as a tomb or temptation. In this paper, I emphasize a more positive Miłoszean attitude to the body, suggesting a poetic solution to the problem of the metaphysical “I” alienated from its own corporeal existence. Specifically, I analyze certain key passages in which the potential dissolution of the integral, metaphysical and traditionally “masculine” subject appears in a distinctly positive light. Particularly in the latter part of his poetic career, Miłosz increasingly embraces a “feminine” and corporeal model of what I term the “weak self,” which he links both with certain highly traditional archetypes of “femininity” and with the basic nature of his own poetic art. Poetry itself is “feminine” in gender according to Miłosz, since it “opens itself and waits for a creator, a spirit, a daemon.” I argue that this peculiar poetic “feminism” is simultaneously conservative and radical, since it tends to express itself through schematic stereotypes, while potentially re-evaluating them. Finally, I explore the ways in which Miłosz’s “feminism” raises fundamental questions about how poetic language functions.
This paper critically examines Bruno Schulz's popular status as a writer of Poland's former multi-cultural "borderland," proposing that his writings do not easily support this image, as he shows little interest in historical cultures (Polish, Jewish, Ukrainian) at all. Instead, the author proposes that Schulz is a writer of the "ontological borderland," where boundaries between cultures and states are irrelevant, since they are just as impermanent as any other instances of form.
This paper treats Bruno Schulz’s story “Cinnamon Shops” as a depiction of two entirely different models of writing: the first disturbingly real for Schulz, and the second more idealized, or even nostalgic. The first model presents writing as a process of constantly deferred meaning, as a wandering through a labyrinth of shifting city streets or human signs, whose “configuration,” as the story’s narrator observes, “fails to match the expected image.” The second, more idealized model was described by Schulz himself in his famous 1935 essay for Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz as the proper goal or aspiration of art:
Its role is to be a probe sunk into the nameless. The artist is an apparatus registering processes in the depths, where value is formed.
The paper presents the culminating scene of “Cinnamon Shops” as a fantasized version of this theory in praxis: the artist sinks his probe, or rides his metaphysical horse and carriage, into the nameless realm, from the labyrinth of language into a forest of meaninglessness which at the same time forms the hidden source of all meaning. The boy protagonist of the story must leave the city, surrender to unconscious will and journey deep into a winter forest at night. There he finds not darkness, cold and death, but sparkling lights, a secret spring and the signs of new life in the dead of winter. However, this journey – much like Schulz’s theory of art and writing more generally – remains in sharp contrast both with the defective version of reality presented in much of his other fiction and with the alternative model of writing as a hopeless search for an ultimate reality that can never be found. This paper examines the conflict between these two visions.
Broadly speaking, the scholarship on Czesław Miłosz has tended to privilege the transcendental aspiration of his writings, in the face of which the physical body inevitably appears as a tomb or temptation. In this paper, I emphasize a more positive Miłoszean attitude to the body, suggesting a poetic solution to the problem of the metaphysical “I” alienated from its own corporeal existence. Specifically, I analyze certain key passages in which the potential dissolution of the integral, metaphysical and traditionally “masculine” subject appears in a distinctly positive light. Particularly in the latter part of his poetic career, Miłosz increasingly embraces a “feminine” and corporeal model of what I term the “weak self,” which he links both with certain highly traditional archetypes of “femininity” and with the basic nature of his own poetic art. Poetry itself is “feminine” in gender according to Miłosz, since it “opens itself and waits for a creator, a spirit, a daemon.” I argue that this peculiar poetic “feminism” is simultaneously conservative and radical, since it tends to express itself through schematic stereotypes, while potentially re-evaluating them. Finally, I explore the ways in which Miłosz’s “feminism” raises fundamental questions about how poetic language functions.
This paper critically examines Bruno Schulz's popular status as a writer of Poland's former multi-cultural "borderland," proposing that his writings do not easily support this image, as he shows little interest in historical cultures (Polish, Jewish, Ukrainian) at all. Instead, the author proposes that Schulz is a writer of the "ontological borderland," where boundaries between cultures and states are irrelevant, since they are just as impermanent as any other instances of form.
This paper treats Bruno Schulz’s story “Cinnamon Shops” as a depiction of two entirely different models of writing: the first disturbingly real for Schulz, and the second more idealized, or even nostalgic. The first model presents writing as a process of constantly deferred meaning, as a wandering through a labyrinth of shifting city streets or human signs, whose “configuration,” as the story’s narrator observes, “fails to match the expected image.” The second, more idealized model was described by Schulz himself in his famous 1935 essay for Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz as the proper goal or aspiration of art:
Its role is to be a probe sunk into the nameless. The artist is an apparatus registering processes in the depths, where value is formed.
The paper presents the culminating scene of “Cinnamon Shops” as a fantasized version of this theory in praxis: the artist sinks his probe, or rides his metaphysical horse and carriage, into the nameless realm, from the labyrinth of language into a forest of meaninglessness which at the same time forms the hidden source of all meaning. The boy protagonist of the story must leave the city, surrender to unconscious will and journey deep into a winter forest at night. There he finds not darkness, cold and death, but sparkling lights, a secret spring and the signs of new life in the dead of winter. However, this journey – much like Schulz’s theory of art and writing more generally – remains in sharp contrast both with the defective version of reality presented in much of his other fiction and with the alternative model of writing as a hopeless search for an ultimate reality that can never be found. This paper examines the conflict between these two visions.
The book presents a dual perspective on Polish literature, combining original readings of key texts with discussions of their two-way connections with other literatures across the globe. With a detailed introduction offering a narrative overview, the book is divided into six sections offering a chronological pathway through the material. Contributors from around the world examine the various cultural exchanges at play, with each chapter including:
Definitions of key terms and brief overviews of historical and political events, literary eras, trends, movements, groups, and institutions for those new to the area Analysis and notes on translations, including their hidden dimensions and potential Textual focus on poetics, such as strategies of composition, style, and genre A range of historical, sociological, political, and economic contexts
From medieval song through to the contemporary novel, this book offers an interpretive history of Polish literature, while also positioning its significance within world literature. The detailed introductions make it accessible to beginners in the area, while the original analysis and focused case studies will also be of interest to researchers.