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World under Revision Cross-Roads. Edited by Ryszard Nycz Wojciech Ligęza World under Revision The Poetry of Wisława Szymborska Translated by Mikołaj Gołubiewski Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. The Publication is funded by Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Poland as a part of the National Programme for the Development of the Humanities. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Ministry cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. Printed by CPI books GmbH, Leck ISSN 2191-6179 ISBN 978-3-631-67604-2 (Print) E-ISBN 978-3-653-06927-3 (E-PDF) E-ISBN 978-3-631-71006-7 (EPUB) E-ISBN 978-3-631-71007-4 (MOBI) DOI 10.3726/978-3-653-06927-3 Open Access: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 unported license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ © Wojciech Ligęza, 2019 Peter Lang – Berlin · Bern · Bruxelles · New York · Oxford · Warszawa · Wien This publication has been peer reviewed. www.peterlang.com Contents Introduction ........................................................................................................ 7 The Beginning ............................................................................................... 13 I After the War The Nonexistent Debut ................................................................................... 13 Inscription of Experience ............................................................................... 17 The Incomplete Joy of Reconstruction ......................................................... 20 An Opening to the Future .............................................................................. 24 Without Revision ......................................................................... 29 II Embroiled in Newspeak Ideological Faith .............................................................................................. 29 The Legacy of Socialist Realism and the Critics .......................................... 32 Poetry: A Second Voice .................................................................................. 36 Women International ..................................................................................... 39 The Toil of Poets .............................................................................................. 41 The Solemn Weather ....................................................................................... 46 Retouches, Departures .................................................................................... 50 The Revision of Language .......................................................................... 59 III Szymborska’s Rhetorics Types of Dialog ................................................................................................ 59 World Under Revision .................................................................................... 63 6 Contents Figures of Reservation .................................................................................. 66 Nonexistence, Nothingness, Nothing ......................................................... 74 Contradiction and Tautology ....................................................................... 87 Phraseological Games ................................................................................... 98 Repetitions and Enumerations: The Poetics of Inventory ........................ 109 The Revision of Forms ............................................................................... 121 IV Poetry and Painting The Styles of Painting – The Styles of Poetry ............................................. 121 The Paradoxes of Time Transformations .................................................... 129 Paintings: Memory, Dream, History ........................................................... 137 .............................................................. 145 V Dialog with Texts of Culture The Gallery of Ancestors: Literary Strolls .................................................. 145 Music and Circumstances ............................................................................ 148 ............................................................. 157 VI The Dream of a Better World Utopia and Anxiety ....................................................................................... 157 The Helpless Demiurge ................................................................................. 169 Revisions, Voices ............................................................................................ 174 Bibliography ...................................................................................................... 179 Index ..................................................................................................................... 187 Introduction Wisława Szymborska’s poetry perceives people in the entirety of their existence; all things in their duration and change, bloom and death, the mystery of origins and unknown final destinies. Her poems embed people in a variety of nature’s forms, chains them to evolution, and through the gift and curse of consciousness, they simultaneously receive a separate position; so much so that, as an excep- tion among creatures, people feel cosmic loneliness. Szymborska’s works link the praise of a multifarious world with reflection about nothingness. Existence is here the reverse side of nonexistence, the triumph of the game of coincidences, a momentary visit at reality, a fleeting affair with life. Under these conditions, there grows the astonishment with constantly experienced phenomena, which one cannot easily classify, tame, and appropriate. The earthly spectacle should be viewed with a fresh eye, without prejudice and aprioric axioms, but with full awareness that the task of cognition is feasible to a very limited extent, that par- ticipation in the performance is too short. Szymborska’s poetry runs the lines of semantic tension between the determinants of individual existence and one’s belonging to the human race, between the history of our species and the entire history of evolution. We want to feel the peak of natural beings while Szymborska shows humanity as a group of aggressors in the world of nature. Therefore, Szymborska’s animals – our friars minor – may reasonably accuse us and question the human wellbeing. Szymborska’s Book of Genesis is incomplete; it gathers more questions than declarations of certainty. The distance that separates “Devonian tail fins” from the writing hand remains unimaginable. We should understand such approxima- tion of prehistory to the modern times as a lesson of humility. The human species does not have an aristocratic pedigree because it clearly belongs to the biological community of beings. Thus, we must rethink the problem of anthropocentrism and revise human usurpations. Szymborska’s original poetic approach makes the individual into a living natural museum, for the body stores the memory of its predecessors in natural history; it exists in many places simultaneously. Hic et nunc looks at itself in semper et ubique. For Szymborska, the experience of history does not teach us anything, studies of the past bring no elevating examples. The lesson of history is a lesson of crime. Evil remains unchanged, it revives with extraordinary strength, while hatred holds a high place among the motivations of deeds. The suffering of individuals builds historical continuity. Lie, violence, and fear engulf seem indestructible. 8 Introduction Perhaps more often than the previous ages, the twentieth century dressed evil in the costume of good to demagogically manipulate ethical sensitivity and experi- ment with human conscience. The human person does not want to be a child of the age and would rather forget about these dependencies. Our aspirations fall by the confluence of polit- ical circumstances and collective interests, always harmful for the individual. Szymborska observes all forms of social utopias with great suspicion. She deconstructs the language of ideological doctrines with no belief in the effec- tiveness of their supposedly revolutionary spells. Her conclusion is sad: it was supposed to be different, but it is as it is. Szymborska avoids grand words to defend the downtrodden; against the ruthless forces of evil, she juxtaposes the defenseless and priceless life of the human individual. Group photographs make individual separateness very problematic. No man’s space is inhabited by a community of anonymous people. We are unable to com- pose biographies of responsibility and reflection from facts described in the language of large numbers, from crumbs of events devoid of ethical rigor and deeper meaning. Where can an individual feel at home? Love gives a chance, but this unique feeling is exceptionally rare in the scale of the entire cosmos. Agreement with another person consists mainly of misunderstandings. One must test love’s magic in all ways, so as not to succumb to premature infatua- tion. Besides, we lead a lonely game with existence in attempts to recognize its vague rules. There obviously

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