substitute for religion, which it was, for several
decades of the century.
‘‘It is very, very hard to predict,’’ he says
when I ask if he believes that this messianic
faith will return to religion in Eastern Europe.
‘‘In Western societies undoubtedly, especially in
Western Europe, there is the loss of the feeling of
the sacred and the sort of transformation of the
churches into clubs of social activity. Why,
excluding the former Communist countries, we
don’t know. We are before such a tumultuous
and such a bleak situation that it is hard to tell
what will emerge. But undoubtedly, there is a
need for basic spiritual values in all those coun-
tries, much stronger than in the West.’’
Perhaps art itself will fill this spiritual gap?
‘‘That’s something that occurredinthe19thcen-
tury already. Obviously, the slogan ‘art for art’s
sake’ was a kind of substitute of religion. And if
you observe today’s scene, you will observe the
names of artists, of great painters like van Gogh,
like Matisse, like Goya and so on—we see a kind of
religious cult of art. They take the figure of spiritual
heroes, the place of saints, or even gods. And this is
taken over by mass media. There is a cult of art—in
America, for instance.In Western Europe, also.
Museums are now a kind of temple.’’
Although he speaks passionately about his
own religious views, Milosz is generally reserved.
When I ask who his favorite contemporary poets
are, he laughs politely and replies that he
wouldn’t drop names. However, as fair alterna-
tive to the previous question, he does offer advice
to aspiring poets. ‘‘Read good poetry. And
among good poetry, I place old Chinese poetry,
of the T’ang dynasty, for instance.’’ Although he
cannot read in Chinese, he believes that, ‘‘reading
in translation is legitimate. I have been acting as a
translator of the Bible from the original Hebrew
and Greek. I translated the Book of Psalms, and
the Book of Job. And from Greek I translated the
Gospel according to Mark.
‘‘I have written one poem in my life in Eng-
lish, the rest in Polish. I translate myself with the
help of my American friends; mostly translations
are a corporate effort.’’
In his critical workThe Land of Ulro,Milosz
writes, ‘‘A work condemned never to leave the
artist’s workshop has the same power as a work
of lasting significance for the public.’’ I asked him
why he believed in this, what he calls the ‘‘magical
intervention through unseen communion.’’
‘‘I can now say here, quoting French poet
Charles Baudelaire, who said in one place,
‘Every form, even one created by man, is immor-
tal.’ Interpret it as you like.
‘‘Of course in the material sense, it makes a
great difference’’ for the public if a work of art is
displayed in a museum, Milosz admitted. ‘‘But
what Baudelaire meant is probably on another
spiritual level, that energies that are drawn into
creating a work, a painting, for instance, that is
not known to the public at all, that [these] ener-
gies somehow act, turn in the human sphere.’’
This spiritual, personal view of his work
reflects Milosz’s desire to be a hermetic poet, an
intensely private artist with a small but loyal fol-
lowing. ‘‘My adventure was very strange because
I started as a hermetic poet and because of vari-
ous circumstances, including literary prizes and
the situation in Poland, and so on, I became a
kind of spokesman for people, for many people;
and it happened practically against my own will. I
have written a certain number of poems during
the war that were anti-Nazi poems, and after the
war I wrote poems connected with the situation in
Poland, and those poems brought me a response,
as I said, practically against my will.
‘‘In 1950 I wrote a short poem, ‘You who
harmed a simple man.’ It waited for some 30
years and that poem was placed on the monu-
ment for workers killed in Gdansk by the police;
it is there, on the monument. So those are adven-
tures of a hermetic poet!’’
Throughout the interview, Milosz’s responses
are often serious, yet undercut by his gentle wit.
When I suggest that perhaps the artist owes a debt
to the general public, he replies without hesitation.
‘‘I am for an artist going after his business, and his
business is, as Auden said, ‘To praise the world,
praise everything which is in being,’ but I have been
taught by history, if you are completely cornered, if
you have no way out except to give vent to your
moral indignation, then you write poems—com-
mitted poems, in a way.’’
Source:William Lach, ‘‘A Conversation with Czeslaw
Milosz,’’ inAmerica, May 12, 1990, pp. 472–75.Sources
Anders, Jaroslaw, Introduction, inLegends of Modern-
ity: Essays and Letters from Occupied Poland, 1942–1943,
by Czeslaw Milosz, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005, pp.
ix–xvi.FromtheRisingoftheSun