TY - JOUR TI - How Much Can One Say? Confessional Poetry and Confessionalism of Poetry AU - Michalski, Przemysław TI - How Much Can One Say? Confessional Poetry and Confessionalism of Poetry AB - This essay sets out to examine Miłosz’s attitude towards confessional poetry, or rather, to examine his stance on confessionalism as a seemingly inseparable element of any poetic utterance. By means of such terms as decorum, referentiality of poetic language and its usefulness, I try to show why Miłosz preferred to stay away from overtly confessional modes of poetic utterance, which draw too heavily on the poet’s own experiences and may result in blurring the distinction between biography and literature. One reason why the poet so intensely disliked excessive confessionalism is that its main purpose is to describe the emotions of the speaker, whereas he felt that the main task of poetry is to celebrate the dazzling beauty of the outside world, whose existence transcends and surpasses the insignifi cantly small inner world of a troubled psyche. Last but not least, the notion of the usefulness of poetry, in his understanding of the term, is that it makes it possible for poems written in diverse countries and epochs to intensify the contemporary reader’s sense of belonging to the great family of the human race. VL - Issues in English IS - Issue 25/2011– Between Miłosz and Milosz PY - 2013 SN - 1425-6851 C1 - 1689-1864 SP - 159 EP - 170 DO - 10.4467/16891864ePC.13.022.1211 UR - https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/przekladaniec/article/how-much-can-one-say-confessional-poetry-and-confessionalism-of-poetry KW - Miłosz KW - poetry KW - confessional KW - decorum KW - referentiality