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The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures
La testimonianza della poesia
Nei primi anni Ottanta, appena insignito del Nobel, Czesław Miłosz fu chiamato dall'Università di Harvard a presentare, in sei lezioni, le sue idee sulla poesia. E della poesia decise di privilegiare la funzione ai suoi occhi più importante, vale a dire la miracolosa capacità di offrire una testimonianza sull'epoca a cui appartiene: «non ho dubbi» afferma «che i posteri ci leggeranno nel tentativo di comprendere che cosa è stato il Novecento, proprio come noi apprendiamo molto sull'Ottocento grazie alle poesie di Rimbaud e alle prose di Flaubert». Ma quale testimonianza del Novecento offre la poesia? Il «tono minore», il dubbio, l'amarezza, la cupezza che paiono contraddistinguerla derivano, certo, dalla fragilità «di tutto ciò che chiamiamo civiltà o cultura», dal presagio che quanto ci circonda «non è più garantito», e potrebbe scomparire. Resta nondimeno una via di salvezza: guardando al secolo dalla prospettiva di un'«altra Europa» ed eleggendo a guide Oscar Milosz e Simone Weil, Miłosz ci introduce infatti a una diversa concezione della poesia, quella che ne fa un «inseguimento appassionato del Reale» – giacché solo nel mai appagato desiderio di mimesi, nella fedeltà al particolare, nel «senso della gerarchia» delle cose sta «la possibilità di sopravvivere a periodi poco propizi».
169 pages, Paperback
First published April 4, 1983
8 people are currently reading
297 people want to read
About the author
Czesław Miłosz
312 books882 followersCzesław Miłosz was a Nobel Prize winning poet and author of Polish-Lithuanian heritage. He memorialised his Lithuanian childhood in a 1955 novel,
The Issa Valley
, and in the 1959 memoir
Native Realm
. After graduating from Sigismund Augustus Gymnasium in Vilnius, he studied law at Stefan Batory University and in 1931 he travelled to Paris, where he was influenced by his distant cousin Oscar Milosz, a French poet of Lithuanian descent and a Swedenborgian. His first volume of poetry was published in 1934.
After receiving his law degree that year, he again spent a year in Paris on a fellowship. Upon returning, he worked as a commentator at Radio Wilno, but was dismissed, an action described as stemming from either his leftist views or for views overly sympathetic to Lithuania. Miłosz wrote all his poetry, fiction, and essays in Polish and translated the Old Testament Psalms into Polish.
Awarded the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature for being an author "who with uncompromising clear-sightedness voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts."
After receiving his law degree that year, he again spent a year in Paris on a fellowship. Upon returning, he worked as a commentator at Radio Wilno, but was dismissed, an action described as stemming from either his leftist views or for views overly sympathetic to Lithuania. Miłosz wrote all his poetry, fiction, and essays in Polish and translated the Old Testament Psalms into Polish.
Awarded the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature for being an author "who with uncompromising clear-sightedness voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts."
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July 15, 2011'I have defined poetry as the passionate pursuit of the Real.' (25)
I recently spent a weekend with this book and I was delighted with Milosz's thoughtful, elegant explorations of a number of themes: the absence of hope from much modern poetry ('The fate of poetry depends on whether a work such as Schiller's and Beethoven's "ode to Joy" is possible'); the poet as a member of the human family vs. the poet as a 'pure artist' who belongs to the elite; progress vs. movement; 'the dictates of the poetic language' and literary convention vs. 'fidelity to the real'; the strange prominence that Milosz assigns to biology; Milosz's reading of his own poem, 'No More',...
In particular, I would recommend this to anyone who has read anything of Milosz's own poetry and if you haven't yet had that pleasure, please rectify that deficiency at the first opportunity. After I finished "Witness to Poetry', I immediately set to re-reading 'Across the River' and I heartily commend that to anyone who seeks humane wisdom obtained in the 'passionate pursuit of the Real.'
I recently spent a weekend with this book and I was delighted with Milosz's thoughtful, elegant explorations of a number of themes: the absence of hope from much modern poetry ('The fate of poetry depends on whether a work such as Schiller's and Beethoven's "ode to Joy" is possible'); the poet as a member of the human family vs. the poet as a 'pure artist' who belongs to the elite; progress vs. movement; 'the dictates of the poetic language' and literary convention vs. 'fidelity to the real'; the strange prominence that Milosz assigns to biology; Milosz's reading of his own poem, 'No More',...
In particular, I would recommend this to anyone who has read anything of Milosz's own poetry and if you haven't yet had that pleasure, please rectify that deficiency at the first opportunity. After I finished "Witness to Poetry', I immediately set to re-reading 'Across the River' and I heartily commend that to anyone who seeks humane wisdom obtained in the 'passionate pursuit of the Real.'
September 13, 2022
"A humanidade cada vez mais haverá de alimentar-se de si própria, cada vez mais haverá de contemplar o seu passado inteiro, procurando ali a chave para o enigma que ela é e penetrando, por empatia, a alma das gerações e civilizações que se foram."
December 29, 2021
In this short book, Milosz shows how poetry reflects the age in which it is created. Poems testify to the times, and their testimony of the 20th century is sobering. This is not a depressing report, however, as Milosz highlights the nature of poetry to fight for truth and life. It cannot but witness, but in the act of its creation is revealed a rebellion against all that would oppress hope and turn the world grey.
September 7, 2018
Czselaw Milosz, on his birthday June 30
History interprets the past, while poetry changes the future; the work of Czeslaw Milosz is nothing less than to guide the adaptation and survival of our humanity in times of catastrophic change. To conserve what has sustained us, to embrace what may renew us as we shape ourselves to the future; his twin arts of history and poetry are tools for managing change, wielded with vision and beauty as he takes up the great task of rebuilding civilization from the ashes.
Engage with him in this our common work; write, speak, teach, organize, or help as your abilities allow, for the work of being human is to help one another and ourselves, to become better than we were, and to achieve a free society of equals. For the threats of totalitarianism, of armed authority and the enforcement of sameness, of annihilation and dehumanization, and the end of freedom will arise and must be met with vigilance. It's easier to be evil than to be good; to blame others for our problems, to seize the illusion of power which is the seed of our destruction.
Like many others, Czselaw Milosz fought the tyrannies of fascism and communism, and his works are a record and case study of how we may survive the unthinkable and live with all kinds of life changing catastrophic loss. To resist and yield not.
One must first read his poetry; New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001 provides a huge trove of glittering treasures to explore, and a good companion reading and guide is The Eternal Moment: The Poetry of Czeslaw Milosz By Aleksander Fiut.
The Witness of Poetry, his essays and thoughts on history, identity, poetry, and the purpose of civilization, is an essential work to understanding how the Second World War totalized and reshaped the potentials and futures of human being, meaning, and value. The Land of Ulro, his literary autobiography , is also wonderful and the third of his many works I nominate to the canon of classic world literature for the consideration of all students of becoming human.
History interprets the past, while poetry changes the future; the work of Czeslaw Milosz is nothing less than to guide the adaptation and survival of our humanity in times of catastrophic change. To conserve what has sustained us, to embrace what may renew us as we shape ourselves to the future; his twin arts of history and poetry are tools for managing change, wielded with vision and beauty as he takes up the great task of rebuilding civilization from the ashes.
Engage with him in this our common work; write, speak, teach, organize, or help as your abilities allow, for the work of being human is to help one another and ourselves, to become better than we were, and to achieve a free society of equals. For the threats of totalitarianism, of armed authority and the enforcement of sameness, of annihilation and dehumanization, and the end of freedom will arise and must be met with vigilance. It's easier to be evil than to be good; to blame others for our problems, to seize the illusion of power which is the seed of our destruction.
Like many others, Czselaw Milosz fought the tyrannies of fascism and communism, and his works are a record and case study of how we may survive the unthinkable and live with all kinds of life changing catastrophic loss. To resist and yield not.
One must first read his poetry; New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001 provides a huge trove of glittering treasures to explore, and a good companion reading and guide is The Eternal Moment: The Poetry of Czeslaw Milosz By Aleksander Fiut.
The Witness of Poetry, his essays and thoughts on history, identity, poetry, and the purpose of civilization, is an essential work to understanding how the Second World War totalized and reshaped the potentials and futures of human being, meaning, and value. The Land of Ulro, his literary autobiography , is also wonderful and the third of his many works I nominate to the canon of classic world literature for the consideration of all students of becoming human.
May 11, 2014
Il libro raccoglie un ciclo di conferenze sulla poesia che Milosz tenne all'Università di Harvard nei primi anni Ottanta. Ciononostante, le riflessioni che vi confluiscono hanno poco della lezione; sembrano piuttosto un ragionamento ad alta voce, il cui procedere non è sempre organico e le cui conclusioni vanno chiarendosi con l'aggiungersi di nuovi spunti, attinti ora dalla storia del Novecento, e della Polonia in particolar modo, ora dai maestri che hanno segnato la formazione culturale del poeta. Nel ripercorrere la propria storia intellettuale e la genesi della poesia occidentale contemporanea, Milosz racconta magnificamente l'eterna tensione alla base del poetare - quella che oppone la forma alla sostanza, la parola al reale, il passato al presente - e le particolari problematiche del poeta contemporaneo, cui l'autore rivolge un invito: cercare, attraverso un incessante inseguimento "del Reale" e con la sensibilità che gli è propria, di interpretare i profondi mutamenti che il mondo attorno a noi attraversa o ci preannuncia. Perché:
"E' probabile che sia in atto una specie di scontro tra l'azione vivificante e quella distruttiva dei batteri della civilità, sin qui capaci di equilibrarsi a vicenda. Quale esito esso avrà in futuro è un'incognita. Non c'è computer capace di calcolare tanti pro e contro, così il poeta con la sua intuizione rimane l'unica , per quanto incerta, fonte di sapere"
Invito ancora attualissimo, a mio parere, per il poeta e per la cultura intera!
"E' probabile che sia in atto una specie di scontro tra l'azione vivificante e quella distruttiva dei batteri della civilità, sin qui capaci di equilibrarsi a vicenda. Quale esito esso avrà in futuro è un'incognita. Non c'è computer capace di calcolare tanti pro e contro, così il poeta con la sua intuizione rimane l'unica , per quanto incerta, fonte di sapere"
Invito ancora attualissimo, a mio parere, per il poeta e per la cultura intera!
September 7, 2008
"Poetry ...is a more reliable witness than journalism."
"...rhetoric often posses for poetry and is its temporary substitute."
"Poetry is the act of universalizing individual experiences."
"... is non-eschatological poetry possible?"
"I have defined poetry as a passionate pursuit of the Real."
"Poetry of prisons and concentration camps...behaves like a mute who tries in vain to squeeze some articulate sound out of his throat."
"One asks...whether a more perfect poetry would not be a more appropriate monument than poetry on the level of facts."
"What surrounds us here and now is not guaranteed. I could just as well not exist-and so, man constructs poetry out of the remnants foound in ruins."
In another essay, Milosz says that it is difficult for Americans to be poets because they have nothing to write about.
"...rhetoric often posses for poetry and is its temporary substitute."
"Poetry is the act of universalizing individual experiences."
"... is non-eschatological poetry possible?"
"I have defined poetry as a passionate pursuit of the Real."
"Poetry of prisons and concentration camps...behaves like a mute who tries in vain to squeeze some articulate sound out of his throat."
"One asks...whether a more perfect poetry would not be a more appropriate monument than poetry on the level of facts."
"What surrounds us here and now is not guaranteed. I could just as well not exist-and so, man constructs poetry out of the remnants foound in ruins."
In another essay, Milosz says that it is difficult for Americans to be poets because they have nothing to write about.
February 16, 2021
Astonishing! Milosz is an Incarnational Poet, with a sense of place, beguilingly balancing time and eternity. The colourful root of memory is nourished by the rich soil of embodied existence in the present world and stretches toward the light and sound of the future eschaton.
August 25, 2020
Here's what I learned: Not journalism but poetry is the reliable witness. Poetry has the depth of spirit, validity of the Zeitgeist that renders it authentic/genuine. Bravo, CM.
September 25, 2024
Chi lo avrebbe mai detto, un libro di un poeta che argomenta di poesia: sono basito, davvero sorprendente. Dal momento che mi son sempre lasciato un po’ in disparte rispetto a questo registro narrativo, la domanda potrebbe sorgere spontanea: leggere di poesia, ma,.. perché? Già, perché?
In attesa di un risposta, che probabilmente non arriverà mai, prendo matita rossa e sottolineo i punti salienti di queste pagine: un amore incondizionato per il proprio paese natio, la Polonia, nella fattispecie. E un dispettoso risentimento nei confronti delle nazioni riferimento della poesia. E, soprattutto, l’acredine verso la tecnologia e il contemporaneo, che ha ucciso il misticismo dell’ignoranza e il fermento di un’immaginazione creativa (immaginazione, è già la seconda volta che mi coinvolge. Prima con Azar Nafisi, come unico strumento di sopravvivenza alla tortura e ai regimi totalitari, qui come via di fuga a una vita circondata da tecnica e tecnicismi e unico baluardo di una vera umanità, ché, in fondo, è lo stesso messaggio sorretto da Nafisi). Ecco, un fine intellettuale, a volte un poco contorto, che è distante anni luce dalle mie interpretazioni umanistiche. Ho letto un pessimistico disagio da profeta biblico, ma non sono certo se possa rappresentare una limpida interpretazione o sia mediata dalla mia idiosincrasia verso certe tematiche e modalità espressive. Poesia come unica fonte di umana redenzione e ultima definizione dell’umano futuro. A spanne attribuirei un certo strisciante presuntuosismo che si celebra un po’ ovunque nella lettura. È comunque interessante come diverso punto di vista. D’altronde, qui non siamo politici: i pensieri altri ci interessano, anzi, di più: ci arricchiscono.
In attesa di un risposta, che probabilmente non arriverà mai, prendo matita rossa e sottolineo i punti salienti di queste pagine: un amore incondizionato per il proprio paese natio, la Polonia, nella fattispecie. E un dispettoso risentimento nei confronti delle nazioni riferimento della poesia. E, soprattutto, l’acredine verso la tecnologia e il contemporaneo, che ha ucciso il misticismo dell’ignoranza e il fermento di un’immaginazione creativa (immaginazione, è già la seconda volta che mi coinvolge. Prima con Azar Nafisi, come unico strumento di sopravvivenza alla tortura e ai regimi totalitari, qui come via di fuga a una vita circondata da tecnica e tecnicismi e unico baluardo di una vera umanità, ché, in fondo, è lo stesso messaggio sorretto da Nafisi). Ecco, un fine intellettuale, a volte un poco contorto, che è distante anni luce dalle mie interpretazioni umanistiche. Ho letto un pessimistico disagio da profeta biblico, ma non sono certo se possa rappresentare una limpida interpretazione o sia mediata dalla mia idiosincrasia verso certe tematiche e modalità espressive. Poesia come unica fonte di umana redenzione e ultima definizione dell’umano futuro. A spanne attribuirei un certo strisciante presuntuosismo che si celebra un po’ ovunque nella lettura. È comunque interessante come diverso punto di vista. D’altronde, qui non siamo politici: i pensieri altri ci interessano, anzi, di più: ci arricchiscono.
November 13, 2020
I have been poking at this book of essays since finishing an earlier book.
It is extraordinary in certain section as it makes a case for a certain basis of Polish and other European poetry based on the depth of history with the wars, strife, religious controversy, and political battles, waged in Europe for a thousand or more years. A history that creates a poetry that can't be written in the United States or the new world because the soil doesn't support the plant.
Some of the analysis is parochial, even familial. But it is trenchant, revealing thoughts or points of view that were illuminating to me.
Milosz touches, too, on topics I think of outside the realm and reach of poetry, particularly the political realm. But he spins webs that tie politics, politics, and possibility together in ways one might think of in the context of science fiction or futurism.
Read in context with The Separate Notebooks, it is revelatory.
It is a short, provocative book that is very worth the time spent reading,
It is extraordinary in certain section as it makes a case for a certain basis of Polish and other European poetry based on the depth of history with the wars, strife, religious controversy, and political battles, waged in Europe for a thousand or more years. A history that creates a poetry that can't be written in the United States or the new world because the soil doesn't support the plant.
Some of the analysis is parochial, even familial. But it is trenchant, revealing thoughts or points of view that were illuminating to me.
Milosz touches, too, on topics I think of outside the realm and reach of poetry, particularly the political realm. But he spins webs that tie politics, politics, and possibility together in ways one might think of in the context of science fiction or futurism.
Read in context with The Separate Notebooks, it is revelatory.
It is a short, provocative book that is very worth the time spent reading,
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March 24, 2024"Though quite differently -I would say inversely- motivated, Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" crowns the history of Whitmanesque verse which once served to sing of the open road ahead. Instead we now have despair at the imprisonment of man in a evil civilization, in a trap without release." p. 15
"Yet to realize that the poetry of the twentieth century testifies to serious disturbances in our perception of the world may already become the first step in self-therapy." p 17
"Besides, poetry was not and is still not prepared to grasp the enormity of the crimes committed in this century, and the 'spiritual consequences of events' are clear to no one." p. 33
"I affirm that, when writing, every poet is making a choice between the dictates of the poetic language and his fidelity to the real. If I cross out a word and replace it with another, because in that way the line as a whole acquires more conciseness, I follow the practice of the classics. If, however, I cross out a word because it does not convey an observed detail, I lead toward realism." p. 71
"Yet to realize that the poetry of the twentieth century testifies to serious disturbances in our perception of the world may already become the first step in self-therapy." p 17
"Besides, poetry was not and is still not prepared to grasp the enormity of the crimes committed in this century, and the 'spiritual consequences of events' are clear to no one." p. 33
"I affirm that, when writing, every poet is making a choice between the dictates of the poetic language and his fidelity to the real. If I cross out a word and replace it with another, because in that way the line as a whole acquires more conciseness, I follow the practice of the classics. If, however, I cross out a word because it does not convey an observed detail, I lead toward realism." p. 71
December 13, 2023
Interesting analysis of the role of the Poets over the years.
The best part of this work is hearing the Author’s encyclopedic knowledge of European Poetry’s evolution in the Late 19th and 20th Centuries pour out. His personal experiences with the rise and fall of Totalitarian Regimes in Central and East Central Europe related in The Captive Mind lends credence to the binding of Poetry to the Life and Times of the Poets.
Reflecting on these theories allowed this Reader to appreciate the long dismissed importance of the Art of Poetry in understanding the History occurring all around us all the Time.
I gave Witness of Poetry only three stars due to so many references to Poems and Poets of Eastern Europe with whom I was unfamiliar. My problem, not Milosz’s. 😰
Three Stars. *** Four for the Narration. ****
The best part of this work is hearing the Author’s encyclopedic knowledge of European Poetry’s evolution in the Late 19th and 20th Centuries pour out. His personal experiences with the rise and fall of Totalitarian Regimes in Central and East Central Europe related in The Captive Mind lends credence to the binding of Poetry to the Life and Times of the Poets.
Reflecting on these theories allowed this Reader to appreciate the long dismissed importance of the Art of Poetry in understanding the History occurring all around us all the Time.
I gave Witness of Poetry only three stars due to so many references to Poems and Poets of Eastern Europe with whom I was unfamiliar. My problem, not Milosz’s. 😰
Three Stars. *** Four for the Narration. ****
March 26, 2020
I read this for my Senior Symposium class that focuses of Czeslaw Milosz. I did not like this book as much as the others. This book is actually a series of lectures that Milosz gave at Harvard University. I think that is why it was so difficult to read for me. It was dense, but overall an intelligent read.
January 14, 2022
If you read or write poetry this book is a must read. It can help you understand where you are in your poetry journey, and the poetry challenges poetry faces in the 21st Century. Can poetry’s truth penetrate the cults of the possessed or will it only bear witness to the devolution of truth we see happening around us? Will poetry be the refuge of those who pursue the truth?
July 25, 2017
Definitely need to go back and mark this thing up and take notes. What an incredible work that easily translates to today.
July 22, 2021
Devastatingly topical still.
February 9, 2013
Poetry is the passionate pursuit of the real. I couldn't agree more. Milosz argues for poetry that is accessible and acts as a witness to the events in our lives. Of all the poetry books arguing for a poetic sensibility, this is one of the best I've read. Milosz wants poetry that is accessible and meaningful. He also mentioned that we are all mediocre poets, just trying to give voice to the unspeakable -- which I agree with as well -- even my best poetic efforts always feel like I'm only making the barest sketches of what I'm trying to say.
December 18, 2013
"È, quello di Milosz, un interrogarsi avvincente e appassionato, cadenzato da tanti capitoli quante sono le lezioni (e relativi temi) riportate: sei pezzi non esattamente facili il cui punto d’arrivo, in larga parte raggiunto, consiste nel sistematizzare in forma scritta la spontaneità dei verba, delle parole pronunciate; e, per di più in merito a quesiti di enorme - e sovente insoluta - entità".
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continua a leggere: articolo completo
January 14, 2008
Though a bit heady at times, Milosz provides insight into the pertinent question (especially pertinent for me, teaching poetry) of why 20th C. poetry so darn depressing. He talks about the loss of connection with community (humanity, really) that poets have experienced (and even chosen) over the past century. He also provides excerpts from Polish poets, which were fun to read.
May 6, 2014
This is best read comprehensively, in that it gains so much more meaning when taken with the sum total of Milosz's work. He can speak to poetry so well because he has lived poetry, and he lived a remarkable life. This wasn't as technically critical as Seamus Heaney's book (The Redress of Poetry) that I finished before this, but fortunately there is more than one way to write about poetry.
September 28, 2007
A seminal work. More here: [http://www.robertpeake.com/archives/3...]
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June 9, 2024I need to spend more time to fully understand this.
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June 1, 2017Read my review of this & other books at http://miscmss.blogspot.com/2017/06/b...
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October 20, 2017809.1 M661 1983
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