Miłosz and Conrad in the Treatise on Morality
cytuj
pobierz pliki
RIS BIB ENDNOTEWybierz format
RIS BIB ENDNOTEMiłosz and Conrad in the Treatise on Morality
Data publikacji: 14.01.2013
Yearbook of Conrad Studies, 2012, Vol. VII, s. 125 - 158
https://doi.org/10.4467/20843941YC.12.007.0696Autorzy
Miłosz and Conrad in the Treatise on Morality
It would appear that Czesław Miłosz’s Treatise on Morality — one of whose aims was to “stave off despair” — was largely inspired by the writings of Joseph Conrad. That Miłosz had no wish to draw his readers’ attention to this is perfectly understandable, given Conrad’s particularly low standing in the eyes of communist State censors. This long poem, which extols human freedom and pours scorn on socialist realism (together with its ideological premises), is one of Miłosz’s best known works in his native Poland, where it was published in 1948. The Treatise on Morality may well have been inspired by three of Conrad’s essays that were banned in communist Poland: Autocracy and War, A Note on the Polish Problem and The Crime of Partition. Conrad’s writings would appear to have helped Miłosz to diagnose Poland’s political predicament from a historical perspective and to look for a way out of it without losing all hope. An analysis of the Treatise on Morality shows that only by reconstructing the Conradian atmosphere and context — alluded to in the text — can we fully grasp all the levels of the poet’s irony, which culminates in a final “punchline” alluding to Heart of Darkness. Apart from suggestive allusions to the brutal colonization of the Congo, the fate of post-war Poland is also seen through the optic of those of Conrad’s novels that deal with the subject of depraved revolutionaries: Nostromo, The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes. Conrad’s ideas for ways to fight against bad fortune and despair are suggested not only by his stories Youth and Typhoon — and by his novels The Nigger of the “Narcissus” and Lord Jim — but also and above all by his volume of memoirs entitled A Personal Record, in which he relates his yearning for freedom as the young, tragic victim of a foreign empire. In an article entitled Joseph Conrad in Polish Eyes and published in 1957 — on the hundredth anniversary of Conrad’s birth — Miłosz writes that, through his writings, Conrad fulfilled the hopes of his father (who gave him the name “Konrad”) and that although “the son did not want to assume a burden that had crushed his father, he had nevertheless become the defender of freedom against the blights of autocracy.”
Adamowicz-Pośpiech, Agnieszka. “Gustaw Herling-Grudziński as a Reader of Conrad”. [In:] Yearbook of Conrad Studies (Poland). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2007, vol. III., pp. 181–193.
Błoński, Jan. Witkacy na zawsze. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2003.
Conrad, Joseph. A Personal Record. Ed. Zdzisław Najder and John H. Stape. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Dzieła. Vols. 1–28. Ed. Zdzisław Najder. Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1972–1974 (vol. 28: Szkice polityczne, 1996).
Heart of Darkness & Other Stories. Introduction and Notes by Gene M. Moore. Ware: Wordsworth Classics, 1999.
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Ed. with an Introduction by Harold Bloom. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009 (Bloom’s Guides).
Lord Jim. Transl. Aniela Zagórska. Ed. Zdzisław Najder. Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1976 (Biblioteka Narodowa, Seria II Nr 188).
Lord Jim. A Tale. Introduction and Notes by Susan Jones. Ware: Wordsworth Classics, 2002.
Nostromo. Transl. Jan Józef Szczepański. Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1981.
Nostromo. A Tale of the Seaboard. Introduction and Notes by Robert Hampson. Ware: Wordsworth Classics, 2000.
Notes on Life and Letters. Ed. John H. Stape with the assistance of Andrew Busza. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Prince Roman. [In:] The Portable Conrad. Ed. with an introduction and notes by Morton Dauwen Zabel. Revised by Frederic R. Karl. New York: Penguin Books, 1976.
Tajny agent. Opowieść prosta. Transl. Agnieszka Glinczanka with a postscript by Zdzisław Najder. Warszawa: Świat Książki, 1999.
The Arrow of Gold. A Story Between Two Notes. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1924.
The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad, vol. 2. Ed. Frederick Karl and Laurence Davies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
The Mirror of the Sea, New York: Doubleday, 1924, vol. IV.
The Nigger of ‘The Narcissus’. Ed. with an introduction and notes by Cedric Watts. London: Penguin Books, 1988.
The Secret Agent. A Simple Tale. Ed. Bruce Harkness and S.W. Reid. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
The Secret Agent. A Simple Tale. Ed. Peter L. Mallios. New York: Modern Library, 2004.
Three Sea Stories. Typhoon, Falk, The Shadow-Line. Introduction and Notes by Keith Carabine. Ware: Wordsworth Classics, 1998.
Under Western Eyes. Ed. with an introduction by Morton Dauwen Zabel. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963.
Youth, Heart of Darkness, The End of the Tether. Ed. Owen Knowles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010 (The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Joseph Conrad).
Złota strzała. Transl. Aniela Zagórska. [In:] idem. Dzieła, vol. 19. Ed. Zdzisław Najder. Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1973.
Conrad żywy. Ed. Wit Tarnawski. London: B. Świderski, 1957 (Książka zbiorowa wydana staraniem Związku Pisarzy Polskich na Obczyźnie).
Dudek, Jolanta. Granice wyobraźni, granice słowa. Studia z literatury porównawczej XX wieku. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2008.
Fleishman, Avrom. Conrad’s Politics. Community and Anarchy in the Fiction of Joseph Conrad. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1967
Franaszek, Andrzej. Miłosz. Biografi a. Kraków: Znak, 2011.
Gillon, Adam. “Conrad and Sartre”, “Conrad and Poland”. [In:] idem. Conrad and Shakespeare. New York: Astra Books, 1976.
Herling-Grudziński, Gustaw. “Rozmowa imaginacyjna z bohaterem Tajfunu” (1945). [In:] idem. Żywi i umarli. Szkice literackie. Lublin: FIS, 1991, pp. 60–65.
Larabee, Mark D. “Conrad and the Maritime Tradition”. [In:] A Historical Guide to Joseph Conrad. Ed. John Peters. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Miłosz, Czesław. Abecadło. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2001.
“Apollo Nałęcz Korzeniowski” (1956). [In:] idem. Prywatne obowiązki. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2001.
Collected and New Poems (1931–2002). New York: Ecco – HarperCollins Publishers, 2003.
Historia literatury polskiej do roku 1939. Transl. Maria Tarnowska. Kraków: Znak, 1993.
“Joseph Conrad in Polish Eyes” (1957). [In:] Joseph Conrad. Critical Assessments, vol. I: Conrad’s Polish Heritage, Memories and
Impressions, Contemporary and Early Responses. Ed. Keith Karabine. The Banks, Mountfi eld: Helm Information Ltd., 1992, pp. 92–102. Source: “Atlantic Monthly” 200-5, November 1957.
“Joseph Conrad’s Father”. Transl. Reuel K. Wilson. [In:] idem. Emperor of the Earth. Modes of Eccentric Vision. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977.
Rodzinna Europa (1959). Warszawa: Czytelnik, 1998.
Rosja, vols. I–II. Warszawa: Zeszyty Literackie, 2011.
“Russia”. [In:] idem. Native Realm. A Search for Self-Defi nition. Transl. Catherine S. Leach. New York: Farrar, 2002.
“Stereotyp u Conrada”. [In:] Conrad żywy. Ed. Wit Tarnawski. London: B. Świderski, 1957.
The Captive Mind. Transl. Jane Zielonko. New York: Vintage International, 1990.
History of Polish Literature. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983 (Second edition).
The Seizure of Power. Transl. Celina Wieniewska. London: Abacus, 1985.
Utwory poetyckie. Poems. Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications, 1976 (abbreviation: Upp 1976).
Zniewolony umysł (1953). Kraków: Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, 1989.
Zdobycie władzy (1955). Kraków: Znak, 1999.
Moore, Gene M. Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”. A Casebook. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Najder, Zdzisław. Conrad in Perspective. Essays on Art and Fidelity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Joseph Conrad. A Life. Transl. Halina Najder. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2007.
Sztuka i wierność. Szkice o twórczości Josepha Conrada. Transl. Halina Najder. Opole: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Opolskiego, 2000.
Życie Josepha Conrada Korzeniowskiego, vols. I–II. Lublin: Gaudium, 2006.
Perczak, Wanda. Polska bibliografi a Conradowska 1896–1992. Toruń: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 1993.
Peters, John G. A Historical Guide to Joseph Conrad. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
The Cambridge Introduction to Joseph Conrad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Poznawanie Miłosza. Ed. Jerzy Kwiatkowski. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1985.
Skutnik, Tadeusz. W imię Conrada. Joseph Conrad w poezji polskiej. Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Morskie, 1977.
Thucydides. The History of the Peloponnesian War. Transl. Benjamin Jowett. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900.
Tukidydes. Wojna peloponeska. Transl. Kazimierz Kumaniecki (1953). Warszawa: Czytelnik 1988.
Ujejski, Józef. O Konradzie Korzeniowskim. Warszawa: Dom Książki Polskiej, 1936.
Watts, Cedric. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. A Critical and Contextual Discussion. Amsterdam, NY: Rodopi B.V., 2012.
Zabierowski, Stefan. Conrad w perspektywie odbioru. Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Morskie, 1979.
Dziedzictwo Conrada w literaturze polskiej XX wieku. Kraków: Ofi cyna Literacka, 1992.
W kręgu Conrada. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, 2008.
Informacje: Yearbook of Conrad Studies, 2012, Vol. VII, s. 125 - 158
Typ artykułu: Oryginalny artykuł naukowy
Uniwersytet Jagielloński w Krakowie
Polska
Publikacja: 14.01.2013
Status artykułu: Otwarte
Licencja: Żadna
Udział procentowy autorów:
Korekty artykułu:
-Języki publikacji:
AngielskiLiczba wyświetleń: 2741
Liczba pobrań: 1653