„Oto głowa zdrajcy”. O sporze Czesława Miłosza z Philipem Larkinem i Robinsonem Jeffersem
Revisiting Czesław Miłosz’s dispute with Philip Larkin and Robinson Jeffers

Author(s): Przemysław Michalski
Subject(s): Studies of Literature, Translation Studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: Miłosz; Larkin; Jeffers; treason; poetry; death; nature
Summary/Abstract: Abstract: The aim of the article is to employ the category of treason, which is relatively seldom used in literary studies, in discussing Czesław Miłosz’s approach to the work of two very different poets, namely Philip Larkin and Robinson Jeffers. The charges of treason were brought against Larkin by Miłosz in his angry rejection of the Englishman’s poetry, which he saw as a betrayal of human values. My intention is to show that Miłosz’s reading of Larkin’s work is highly subjective and patently biased. The most egregious examples of his prejudice against Larkin is a short poem “Against the Poetry of Philip Larkin”, which is little more than a hurried dismissal of his work and worldview. My ambition is to try to redress the balance by identifying and exposing the prejudices and hostilities which shape Miłosz’s interpretation of Larkin’s poetry. While the poet from Hull never fails to be censured by Miłosz for his alleged misanthropy, the majestic verse of Jeffers’s identification with nature meets with far more understanding and appreciation, though – as I try to prove in this essay – the American poet’s was really a poetry of treason and defection to the enemy. I contend that Jeffers betrayed humanity by willful desertion of human vantage point and observing the baffling follies of mankind from the perspective of inhuman nature.

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