La poesie erotique et metaphysique. Lieu de rencontre entre Oscar Milosz et Czesław Miłosz
Woman: an erotic and metaphysical instrument

Summary/Abstract: In “Amorous Initiation”, Oscar Milosz tells the story of the love of Mr. Pinamonte for Clarice-Annalena. A chance meeting with a woman who is, among other things, easy and fickle, perhaps even a prostitute, becomes a mystical meeting with the divine. Annalena is ambivalent : An ordinary woman, a bewitching Circe, a Great Whore of Babylon, a sign of the beauty of creation, a symbol of God. Above all she is the way to Transcendence. Annalena reappears years later in the poem of Czesław Miłosz, and, in turn, invites the poet on a great voyage. This is a voyage through the woman to the other side of the looking glass, towards God. When I say “through the woman” it is to be taken literally: “I loved your velvet yoni, Annalena, the long voyages in the delta of your legs”. The woman in the poetry of C. Miłosz is as ambivalent as her prototype in “Amorous Initiation”. She is the incarnation of nature — a crushing, sucking, chewing, digesting thing, she is the fragile creature who arouses deep compassion, a travel companion, an incarnation of Beauty, and finally a symbol of the divine. We are now going to retrace this voyage through women in the poems of C. Miłosz.

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