Siena in Polish 20th Century Literature Cover Image

Siena w literaturze polskiej XX wieku
Siena in Polish 20th Century Literature

Iwaszkiewicz–Miłosz–Herbert

Author(s): Helena Markowska
Subject(s): Polish Literature
Published by: Instytut Badań Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: image of Siena in Polish 20 th c. literature; Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz; Czesław Miłosz; Zbigniew Herbert

Summary/Abstract: The article is an attempt at analysing three images of Siena in Polish 20th c. literature. They are approached not as much as literary representations of the place, but as three various modes of using, in more general reflections, culturally-bound associations connected with this place. Reading Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, and Czesław Miłosz’s poems as well as Zbigniew Herbert’s essay lead to formulating the conclusion that for the writers the Italian city served first and foremost as a space of meeting timeless beauty against which the thorny issues of human everyday life significance, imperfection and suffering are voiced. As a result, all the pieces of writing enter into a dialogue focused on such oppositions as abstraction and materiality, duration and movement, lightness and heaviness, ideal and reality.

  • Issue Year: 2017
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 99-111
  • Page Count: 13
  • Language: Polish
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