The essay focuses on Czesław Miłosz’s translation of Psalm 51, one of the
most celebrated penitential psalms. Unlike the medieval practice of illuminating books
of psalms, where the images offered a vivid and concrete narrative context for the pleas
and lamentations, Miłosz aims to highlight the universal and archetypal dimension of
King David’s prayers. He sets out to create a new hieratic Polish style to reconcile
liturgical use with the evocative qualities and unique prosodies of Hebrew poetry,
without sacrifi cing a coherent theological interpretation. To reproduce the characteristic
repetitions and parallelisms, Miłosz draws lexical and syntactic inspiration from the
earliest Polish translations of the psalms, notably the Psałterz Puławski (Psalter of
Puławy, late fi fteenth century). Ultimately, his translation forms a complex amalgam,
bringing together the religious intuitions of Judaism, the hieratic tradition of the Polish
language and the semantic intensity of Miłosz’s own poetry.

The essay focuses on Czesław Miłosz’s translation of Psalm 51, one of the
most celebrated penitential psalms. Unlike the medieval practice of illuminating books
of psalms, where the images offered a vivid and concrete narrative context for the pleas
and lamentations, Miłosz aims to highlight the universal and archetypal dimension of
King David’s prayers. He sets out to create a new hieratic Polish style to reconcile
liturgical use with the evocative qualities and unique prosodies of Hebrew poetry,
without sacrifi cing a coherent theological interpretation. To reproduce the characteristic
repetitions and parallelisms, Miłosz draws lexical and syntactic inspiration from the
earliest Polish translations of the psalms, notably the Psałterz Puławski (Psalter of
Puławy, late fi fteenth century). Ultimately, his translation forms a complex amalgam,
bringing together the religious intuitions of Judaism, the hieratic tradition of the Polish
language and the semantic intensity of Miłosz’s own poetry.