{"product_id":"the-witness-of-poetry-9780674953833","title":"The Witness of Poetry","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"A classic for our time.\"--Saturday Review\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Nobel Prize-winning writer on poetry as testimony to the upheavals of the twentieth century.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFor many years, Polish émigré Czeslaw Milosz's poetry was relatively unknown outside of Eastern Europe. While his 1953 anticommunist tract \u003ci\u003eThe Captive Mind\u003c\/i\u003e had solidified his reputation as a political thinker in the West, his poems languished in obscurity, distributed mostly by underground Polish presses evading censorship from the communist regime. Only once he won the Nobel Prize in 1980 did his unique poetic voice--prophetic, ironic, sometimes bitter, but always hopeful--gain wider recognition, from both English-speaking audiences and the Polish government itself, which could no longer suppress the brilliant, irascible defector. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eCollecting Milosz's 1981-1982 Norton Lectures, \u003ci\u003eThe Witness of Poetry\u003c\/i\u003e offers an unparalleled window into this heady moment in his career. Newly recognized as one of the great poets of his time, Milosz stages an ambitious defense of the need for poetry amid the ruins of a catastrophic twentieth century. Rather than reacting to the procession of world wars and totalitarian regimes by fleeing from reality into abstruse symbolism or \"pure poetry,\" Milosz argues that poetry must be \"a passionate pursuit of the real.\" Only then will poets liberate themselves from the cramped confines of a bohemian subculture and rejoin the \"great human family.\" And only then will poetry become \"as essential as bread.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIntroducing Western audiences to a wide range of Polish voices, from Adam Mickiewicz and Wislawa Szymborska to Oscar Milosz, his distant cousin, Milosz's lectures vividly reveal that Polish poetry remains a wellspring of \"incorrigible hope,\" not despite but because of Poland's calamitous history.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Czeslaw Milosz\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Belknap Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 01\/01\/1984\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 128\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.43lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.01h x 6.06w x 0.41d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780674953833\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMilosz, Czeslaw:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) was the author of dozens of volumes of poetry, along with several novels and collections of essays. The winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature, he was Professor of Slavic Languages and Literature at University of California, Berkeley.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Belknap Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":45108163739763,"sku":"9780674953833","price":48.3,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0555\/9255\/0515\/files\/img_3c481fe6-3e89-4fb4-8350-b0fa1117bb8a.jpg?v=1781612227","url":"https:\/\/bookstorenmore.com\/products\/the-witness-of-poetry-9780674953833","provider":"Bookstore N More","version":"1.0","type":"link"}