Encyclopedia, Difference between revisions of "Czeslaw Milosz" - New World

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{{Infobox Writer
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| name        = Czesław Miłosz
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[[Image:Czeslaw Milosz 1998 by Kubik.jpg|thumb|200px|Czeslaw Milosz in 1998.]]
| image      = Czeslaw Milosz 1998 by Kubik.jpg
 
| caption    = Czesław Miłosz, [[Kraków]], December 1998.
 
| birth_date  = June 30, 1911,
 
| birth_place = Šeteniai, near [[Vilnius]].
 
| death_date  = August 14, 2004,
 
| death_place = [[Kraków]].
 
| magnum_opus =
 
| occupation  = [[Poet]], [[essayist]].
 
| salary      =
 
| networth    =
 
| website    =
 
| footnotes  =}}
 
  
 
'''Czeslaw Milosz''' (June 30, 1911—August 14, 2004), Polish poet and novelist, won the [[Nobel Prize]] for Literature in 1980.
 
'''Czeslaw Milosz''' (June 30, 1911—August 14, 2004), Polish poet and novelist, won the [[Nobel Prize]] for Literature in 1980.
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==Biography==
 
==Biography==
 +
===Early Years===
  
 
Born to a Polish-speaking family in Lithuania, Milosz studied law in its capital city, Vilna, (today, Vilnius), a meeting point between East and West. In that ancient city, Lithunians, Poles, Byelorussians, and Tartars, [[Christians]], [[Jews]], and [[Muslims]] intermingled peacefully.
 
Born to a Polish-speaking family in Lithuania, Milosz studied law in its capital city, Vilna, (today, Vilnius), a meeting point between East and West. In that ancient city, Lithunians, Poles, Byelorussians, and Tartars, [[Christians]], [[Jews]], and [[Muslims]] intermingled peacefully.
Line 27: Line 16:
 
Yet Milosz, like other Central Europeans who had experienced at close range the impact of the first World War and of the rise of [[Communism]] in nearby [[Russia]], felt a sense of foreboding, of impending catastrophe.
 
Yet Milosz, like other Central Europeans who had experienced at close range the impact of the first World War and of the rise of [[Communism]] in nearby [[Russia]], felt a sense of foreboding, of impending catastrophe.
  
His first published poems, a 1933 volume entitled Poem of Frozen Time (Poemat o czasie zastyglym), deal with the imminence of yet another war and the worldwide cataclysm that it portends.
+
His first published poems, a 1933 volume entitled ''Poem of Frozen Time'' (Poemat o czasie zastyglym), deal with the imminence of yet another war and the worldwide cataclysm that it portends.
  
When the Nazis did invade Poland, Milosz moved to Warsaw to join the resistance. There he edited an underground anthology of Polish wartime poetry, Independent Song (Pien niepodlegla, 1942). The defeat of Poland and the tragic fate of the Poles and Jews surrounding him were deeply burned into his life. He personally witnessed the end of the walled Jewish ghetto in Warsaw.
+
When the [[Nazis]] did invade [[Poland]], Milosz moved to [[Warsaw]] to join the resistance. There he edited an underground anthology of Polish wartime poetry, ''Independent Song'' (Pien niepodlegla, 1942). The defeat of Poland and the tragic fate of the Poles and Jews surrounding him were deeply burned into his life. He personally witnessed the end of the walled Jewish [[Warsaw Ghetto|ghetto]] in Warsaw.
  
 
In response to the horror, Milosz offered “The World (A Naive Poem)” (1943). Reaching beyond the intensity of his suffering, Milosz helped his readers sense divine promise within ordinary things, a presence that suggests that evil in the world is not an expression of its innermost nature and will pass.
 
In response to the horror, Milosz offered “The World (A Naive Poem)” (1943). Reaching beyond the intensity of his suffering, Milosz helped his readers sense divine promise within ordinary things, a presence that suggests that evil in the world is not an expression of its innermost nature and will pass.
  
After the war, Milosz, then a socialist, joined the Polish diplomatic corps. He served in New York and Washington DC before being sent to Paris where he asked for political asylum in 1951. Stalinism had increased its hold on Poland. In France, Milosz published The Captive Mind (Zniewolony Umysl), probably his best-known work, a critique of the Polish Communist Party’s assault on the independence of the intelligentsia.
+
===Post-war career===
 +
 
 +
After the war, Milosz, then a [[socialist]], joined the Polish diplomatic corps. He served in [[New York]] and [[Washington DC]] before being sent to [[Paris]] where he asked for political asylum in 1951. [[Stalin]]ism had increased its hold on Poland. In France, Milosz published ''The Captive Mind'' (Zniewolony Umysl), probably his best-known work, a critique of the Polish Communist Party’s assault on the independence of the intelligentsia.
 
Governments can use more than censorship to control people; they can even change the meaning of words, Milosz reminds us.
 
Governments can use more than censorship to control people; they can even change the meaning of words, Milosz reminds us.
  
In the early 1960s, Milosz left Paris to become professor of Slavic languages and literature at the University of California at Berkeley. In 1970, he became a United States citizen. He is not often thought of as a commentator on American politics and culture, but in Visions from San Francisco Bay, he talks at length about America in the 1960s.
+
In the early 1960s, Milosz left Paris to become professor of Slavic languages and literature at the [[University of California at Berkeley]]. In 1970, he became a [[United States]] citizen. He is not often thought of as a commentator on American politics and culture, but in ''Visions from San Francisco Bay'', he talks at length about America in the 1960s.
  
Milosz frequently experienced his life as one of exile; not only because of the years in which he was separated from his native land, but in the larger sense that the human condition as he knew it was one in which all humanity endures metaphysical or even religious exile. This spiritual awareness touched every dimension of his life, and he wrote of The Unattainable Earth (Nieobjeta Ziemia). The longing awakened by an intimate, pure, and unconcious childhood bond with nature that almost spontaneously identified with the entire world, could not be fulfilled.
+
Milosz frequently experienced his life as one of exile; not only because of the years in which he was separated from his native land, but in the larger sense that the human condition as he knew it was one in which all humanity endures metaphysical or even religious exile. This spiritual awareness touched every dimension of his life, and he wrote of ''The Unattainable Earth'' (Nieobjeta Ziemia). The longing awakened by an intimate, pure, and unconcious childhood bond with nature that almost spontaneously identified with the entire world, could not be fulfilled.
  
In The Land of Ulro, Milosz writes about good and evil using his relationship with nature, “When my guardian angel...is triumphant, the earth looks precious to me and I live in ecstasy...surrounded by divine protection...my dreams are of magically rich landscapes, and I forget about death, because whether it comes in a month or five years it will be done as it was decreed, not by the God of the philosophers but by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When the Devil triumphs, I am appalled...I look at trees in bloom as they blindly repeat...what has been willed by the law of natural selection...I am oppressed by the randomness and absurdity of my individual existence...and then the terror: my life is over, I won’t get another, only death now.”
+
In ''The Land of Ulro'', Milosz wrote about [[good and evil]] using his relationship with nature:
  
Milosz was much influenced by William Blake (Ulro is Blake’s creation); Emanuel Swedenborg; and Milosz’ cousin, poet and mystic Oscar Milosz.  
+
<blockquote>“When my guardian angel...is triumphant, the earth looks precious to me and I live in ecstasy...surrounded by divine protection...my dreams are of magically rich landscapes, and I forget about death, because whether it comes in a month or five years it will be done as it was decreed, not by the God of the philosophers but by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When the Devil triumphs, I am appalled...I look at trees in bloom as they blindly repeat...what has been willed by the law of natural selection...I am oppressed by the randomness and absurdity of my individual existence...and then the terror: my life is over, I won’t get another, only death now.”</blockquote>
  
Throughout his life, Milosz remained deeply involved in Polish letter. In his later years, he translated the writing of Polish authors largely unknown in the West such as Alexander Wat, a man whose time in Communist concentration camps produced a profoundly honest theological and literary voice. Wat’s autobiography, My Century, was edited from conversations between Milosz and Wat.
+
Milosz was much influenced by William Blake ("Ulro" is Blake’s creation); Emanuel Swedenborg; and Milosz’ cousin, the poet and mystic Oscar Milosz.  
  
During his lifetime, Milosz received many honors. He is listed at Israel’s Yad Vashem memorial to the holocaust as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations.” His poems were placed on a monument to fallen shipyard workers in Gdansk. He received the Prix Litteraire European (1953), the Marian Kister Award (1967), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1977), the Neustadt International Prize (1978), and National Medal of Arts (1989)(check). He was appointed a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (date) and of the American Institute of Arts and Letters (1982). He was granted five (check) honorary doctorates including one from Harvard (check year) where he held the Eliot Norton Chair.
+
Throughout his life, Milosz remained deeply involved in Polish letter. In his later years, he translated the writing of Polish authors largely unknown in the West such as [[Alexander Wat]], a man whose time in Communist concentration camps produced a profoundly honest theological and literary voice. Wat’s autobiography, ''My Century'', was edited from conversations between Milosz and Wat.
 +
 
 +
==Death and Legacy==
 
   
 
   
After the Soviet empire fell apart, Milosz was once again able to live in Poland. He eventually settled in kracow where his 90th birthday was widely celebrated. There he died in 2002 at the age of 93. Milosz' first wife, Janian Dluska, the mother of his two sons, Anthony and John Peter, had already died in 1986; his second wife, Carol, an American-born historian, had passed away in 2001. He is buried in Krakow's Skalka Church.
+
After the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] empire disintegrated, Milosz was once again able to live in Poland. He eventually settled in [[Kracow]], where his ninetieth birthday was widely celebrated. There he died in 2002 at the age of 93. Milosz' first wife, Janian Dluska, the mother of his two sons, Anthony and John Peter, had died in 1986; his second wife, Carol, an American-born historian, had passed away in 2001. Milosz is buried in Krakow's Skalka Church.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
Unification Aspects
 
 
 
Czeslaw Milosz published original poetry in the World & I magazine in September, 1986. Milosz was drawn to the magazine because of a critique of scientism that had appeared in the second issue of the World & I. The magazine was founded by Reverend Sun Myung Moon
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
'''Czesław Miłosz''' (June 30, 1911 &ndash; August 14, 2004), was a [[Poland|Polish]] [[poet]], writer, academic, and translator. In 1961, he became a professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley, and in 1980 he won the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]].
 
==Life==
 
 
 
Czesław Miłosz was born at Šeteniai ([[Polish language|Polish]]: ''Szetejnie''), Lithuania, in what was then part of the [[History of Lithuania|Russian Empire]], into a [[Szlachta|Polonized Lithuanian]] family of the [[Lubicz coat of arms|Lubicz coat-of-arms]]. Although he did not speak [[Lithuanian language|Lithuanian]], he emphasized — as had [[Adam Mickiewicz]] and [[Józef Piłsudski]] — his family connections with the ancient [[Grand Duchy of Lithuania]], which for centuries had been part of the [[Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth]]. He spent part of his childhood, about the time of the [[Russian Revolution of 1917]], in [[Russia]].  His [[law]] studies were at [[Vilnius University|Vilnius]], then part of the [[Second Polish Republic]].
 
 
 
After [[World War II]], in 1951, as [[cultural attaché]] of the [[Communist state|communist]] [[People's Republic of Poland]] in [[Paris]], Miłosz broke with his government and obtained [[refugee|political asylum]] in [[France]]. In 1953 he received the ''[[Prix Littéraire Européen]]'' (European Literary Prize).
 
 
 
In 1960 Miłosz came to the United States, and in 1970 he took U.S. citizenship. In 1961 he began a professorship in [[Polish literature]] in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the [[University of California, Berkeley]]. In 1978 Miłosz received the [[Neustadt International Prize for Literature]]. He retired that same year, but continued teaching at Berkeley. In 1980 he received the [[Nobel Prize for Literature]].
 
 
 
When the [[Iron Curtain]] fell, Miłosz was able to return to Poland, at first to visit and later to live there part-time.
 
 
 
In 1989 Miłosz received the [[National Medal of Arts]] and an honorary doctorate from [[Harvard University]].
 
 
 
His book ''[[The Captive Mind]]'' (1953) is considered one of the finest studies of intellectuals under a repressive regime.  He observed that those who became [[dissident]]s were not necessarily the ones with the strongest minds, but rather those with the weakest stomachs. The mind can rationalize anything, he said, but the stomach can take only so much.  He also said that as a poet he avoided touching his nation's wounds, for fear of making them holy.
 
 
 
Czesław Miłosz is honored, at [[Israel]]'s [[Yad Vashem]] memorial to the [[Holocaust]], as one of the "[[Righteous among the Nations]]."  Poems by him were placed on a monument to fallen shipyard workers in [[Gdańsk]].
 
 
 
His books and poems have been translated into English by many hands, including [[Jane Zielonko]] (''[[The Captive Mind]]''), Miłosz himself, his Berkeley students, and his friends and Berkeley colleagues, [[Peter Dale Scott]], [[Robert Pinsky]] and [[Robert Hass]].
 
 
 
Miłosz spoke English with a Polish accent.  Once, during a 1966 lecture at the [[University of California, Berkeley]], he startled students with a reference to "the Juice in Poland" (he had meant "the ''Jews'' in Poland").
 
 
 
Miłosz took pleasure occasionally in deflating academic pomposity, as when he recounted the stir he had caused in referring at a literary conference to "turpism" (same root as the [[English language|English]] "turpitude"), which some in the audience took to be a new literary movement.
 
  
Though somewhat reserved in manner, in the 1960s he would playfully greet a Polish-Argentinian-American coed with, "How's your sex life?"
+
Milosz received many honors. He is listed at Israel’s [[Yad Vashem]] memorial to the [[holocaust]] as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations.” His poems were placed on a monument to fallen shipyard workers in [[Gdansk]]. He received the ''Prix Litteraire European'' (1953), the Marian Kister Award (1967), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1977), the Neustadt International Prize (1978), and National Medal of Arts (1989)(check). He was appointed a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (date) and of the American Institute of Arts and Letters (1982). He was granted five (check) honorary doctorates including one from Harvard (check year) where he held the Eliot Norton Chair.
  
Miłosz died in 2004, at his home in Kraków, aged 93. His first wife, Janina, had died in 1986; and his second wife, Carol, a U.S.-born historian, in 2002. Miłosz was buried at [[Kraków]]'s [[Skałka|Skałka Church]].
+
==Quotations==
  
 
==Works==
 
==Works==

Revision as of 02:26, 3 May 2007


Czeslaw Milosz (June 30, 1911—August 14, 2004), Polish poet and novelist, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980.

Milosz' works are notable for insights into religion, philosophy, nature, and politics. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, he declared that the books that linger should “deal with the most incomprehensible quality of God-created things.”

Biography

Early Years

Born to a Polish-speaking family in Lithuania, Milosz studied law in its capital city, Vilna, (today, Vilnius), a meeting point between East and West. In that ancient city, Lithunians, Poles, Byelorussians, and Tartars, Christians, Jews, and Muslims intermingled peacefully.

Yet Milosz, like other Central Europeans who had experienced at close range the impact of the first World War and of the rise of Communism in nearby Russia, felt a sense of foreboding, of impending catastrophe.

His first published poems, a 1933 volume entitled Poem of Frozen Time (Poemat o czasie zastyglym), deal with the imminence of yet another war and the worldwide cataclysm that it portends.

When the Nazis did invade Poland, Milosz moved to Warsaw to join the resistance. There he edited an underground anthology of Polish wartime poetry, Independent Song (Pien niepodlegla, 1942). The defeat of Poland and the tragic fate of the Poles and Jews surrounding him were deeply burned into his life. He personally witnessed the end of the walled Jewish ghetto in Warsaw.

In response to the horror, Milosz offered “The World (A Naive Poem)” (1943). Reaching beyond the intensity of his suffering, Milosz helped his readers sense divine promise within ordinary things, a presence that suggests that evil in the world is not an expression of its innermost nature and will pass.

Post-war career

After the war, Milosz, then a socialist, joined the Polish diplomatic corps. He served in New York and Washington DC before being sent to Paris where he asked for political asylum in 1951. Stalinism had increased its hold on Poland. In France, Milosz published The Captive Mind (Zniewolony Umysl), probably his best-known work, a critique of the Polish Communist Party’s assault on the independence of the intelligentsia. Governments can use more than censorship to control people; they can even change the meaning of words, Milosz reminds us.

In the early 1960s, Milosz left Paris to become professor of Slavic languages and literature at the University of California at Berkeley. In 1970, he became a United States citizen. He is not often thought of as a commentator on American politics and culture, but in Visions from San Francisco Bay, he talks at length about America in the 1960s.

Milosz frequently experienced his life as one of exile; not only because of the years in which he was separated from his native land, but in the larger sense that the human condition as he knew it was one in which all humanity endures metaphysical or even religious exile. This spiritual awareness touched every dimension of his life, and he wrote of The Unattainable Earth (Nieobjeta Ziemia). The longing awakened by an intimate, pure, and unconcious childhood bond with nature that almost spontaneously identified with the entire world, could not be fulfilled.

In The Land of Ulro, Milosz wrote about good and evil using his relationship with nature:

“When my guardian angel...is triumphant, the earth looks precious to me and I live in ecstasy...surrounded by divine protection...my dreams are of magically rich landscapes, and I forget about death, because whether it comes in a month or five years it will be done as it was decreed, not by the God of the philosophers but by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When the Devil triumphs, I am appalled...I look at trees in bloom as they blindly repeat...what has been willed by the law of natural selection...I am oppressed by the randomness and absurdity of my individual existence...and then the terror: my life is over, I won’t get another, only death now.”

Milosz was much influenced by William Blake ("Ulro" is Blake’s creation); Emanuel Swedenborg; and Milosz’ cousin, the poet and mystic Oscar Milosz.

Throughout his life, Milosz remained deeply involved in Polish letter. In his later years, he translated the writing of Polish authors largely unknown in the West such as Alexander Wat, a man whose time in Communist concentration camps produced a profoundly honest theological and literary voice. Wat’s autobiography, My Century, was edited from conversations between Milosz and Wat.

Death and Legacy

After the Soviet empire disintegrated, Milosz was once again able to live in Poland. He eventually settled in Kracow, where his ninetieth birthday was widely celebrated. There he died in 2002 at the age of 93. Milosz' first wife, Janian Dluska, the mother of his two sons, Anthony and John Peter, had died in 1986; his second wife, Carol, an American-born historian, had passed away in 2001. Milosz is buried in Krakow's Skalka Church.

Milosz received many honors. He is listed at Israel’s Yad Vashem memorial to the holocaust as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations.” His poems were placed on a monument to fallen shipyard workers in Gdansk. He received the Prix Litteraire European (1953), the Marian Kister Award (1967), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1977), the Neustadt International Prize (1978), and National Medal of Arts (1989)(check). He was appointed a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (date) and of the American Institute of Arts and Letters (1982). He was granted five (check) honorary doctorates including one from Harvard (check year) where he held the Eliot Norton Chair.

Quotations

Works

File:Herb Lubicz.jpg
Lubicz coat-of-arms.
  • Kompozycja (1930)
  • Podróż (1930)
  • Poemat o czasie zastygłym (1933)
  • Trzy zimy / Three Winters (1936)
  • Obrachunki
  • Wiersze / Verses (1940)
  • Pieśń niepodległa (1942)
  • Ocalenie / Rescue (1945)
  • Traktat moralny / A Moral Treatise (1947)
  • Zniewolony umysł / The Captive Mind (1953)
  • Zdobycie władzy / The Seizure of Power (1953)
  • Światło dzienne / The Light of Day (1953)
  • Dolina Issy / The Issa Valley (1955)
  • Traktat poetycki / A Poetical Treatise (1957)
  • Rodzinna Europa / Native Realm (1958)
  • Kontynenty (1958)
  • Człowiek wśród skorpionów (1961)
  • Król Popiel i inne wiersze / King Popiel and Other Poems (1961)
  • Gucio zaczarowany / Gucio Enchanted (1965)
  • Widzenia nad Zatoką San Francisco / Visions of San Francisco Bay (1969)
  • Miasto bez imienia / City Without a Name (1969)
  • The History of Polish Literature (1969)
  • Prywatne obowiązki / Private Obligations (1972)
  • Gdzie słońce wschodzi i kiedy zapada / Where the Sun Rises and Where It Sets (1974)
  • Ziemia Ulro / The Land of Ulro (1977)
  • Ogród nauk / The Garden of Learning (1979)
  • Hymn o perle / The Poem of the Pearl (1982)
  • The Witness of Poetry (1983)
  • Nieobjęta ziemio / The Unencompassed Earth (1984)
  • Kroniki / Chronicles (1987)
  • Dalsze okolice / Farther Surroundings (1991)
  • Zaczynając od moich ulic / Starting from My Streets (1985)
  • Metafizyczna pauza / The Metaphysical Pause (1989)
  • Poszukiwanie ojczyzny (1991)
  • Rok myśliwego (1991)
  • Na brzegu rzeki / Facing the River (1994)
  • Szukanie ojczyzny / In Search of a Homeland (1992)
  • Legendy nowoczesności / Modern Legends (1996)
  • Życie na wyspach / Life on Islands (1997)
  • Piesek przydrożny / Roadside Dog (1997)
  • Abecadlo Miłosza / Milosz's Alphabet (1997)
  • Inne Abecadło / A Further Alphabet (1998)
  • Wyprawa w dwudziestolecie / An Excursion through the Twenties and Thirties (1999)
  • To / It (2000)
  • Orfeusz i Eurydyka (2003)
  • O podróżach w czasie / On Time Travel (2004)
  • Wiersze ostatnie / The Last Poems (2006)

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Faggen, Robert, ed. Striving Towards Being: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Czesław Miłosz, Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1996. ISBN 978-0374271008
  • Maciuszko, Jerzy J. Striving Towards Being: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Czeslaw Milosz.: An article from: World Literature Today. University of Oklahoma, September 22, 1997, v. 71, Issue n4, p 88.

External links

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