Remarks on the most recent translation of T.S. Eliot’s poetry
In this review of Adam Pomorski’s translation of Eliot’s poetry into Polish, the author
endeavours to show the translator’s achievement in correcting the rather over-spiritualised
understanding of this poetry that has developed in Poland as a result of earlier
translators’ work. Pomorski, in contrast with his predecessors, lays emphasis on the
‘physical’, rather than the ‘metaphysical’ elements in Eliot’s poetry. His translatory
choices, while excellently suited to such poems as Mr Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service
or The Hippopotamus, tend, however, to fl atten out references to the spiritual, giving an
‘over-physicalised’ impression of the poet’s oeuvre as a whole. This translation does not
entirely do justice to the subtle balance of the physical and the metaphysical in Eliot’s
poetry; nor does it bring out the unifying element of ‘auto-allusion’. Pomorski thus by
implication opts for the view that sees Eliot’s later work not as a development of the
earlier but as a turning away from it. With few exceptions, the translator’s explanatory
notes are accurate and helpful to the Polish reader. When it comes to sensitivity to
rhyme and rhythm, Pomorski cannot be faulted. This is both a scholarly and a poetically
admirable addition to the corpus of available translations.

Remarks on the most recent translation of T.S. Eliot’s poetry
In this review of Adam Pomorski’s translation of Eliot’s poetry into Polish, the author
endeavours to show the translator’s achievement in correcting the rather over-spiritualised
understanding of this poetry that has developed in Poland as a result of earlier
translators’ work. Pomorski, in contrast with his predecessors, lays emphasis on the
‘physical’, rather than the ‘metaphysical’ elements in Eliot’s poetry. His translatory
choices, while excellently suited to such poems as Mr Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service
or The Hippopotamus, tend, however, to fl atten out references to the spiritual, giving an
‘over-physicalised’ impression of the poet’s oeuvre as a whole. This translation does not
entirely do justice to the subtle balance of the physical and the metaphysical in Eliot’s
poetry; nor does it bring out the unifying element of ‘auto-allusion’. Pomorski thus by
implication opts for the view that sees Eliot’s later work not as a development of the
earlier but as a turning away from it. With few exceptions, the translator’s explanatory
notes are accurate and helpful to the Polish reader. When it comes to sensitivity to
rhyme and rhythm, Pomorski cannot be faulted. This is both a scholarly and a poetically
admirable addition to the corpus of available translations.