by
C. Milosz
Product
Details
 |
ISBN: |
0-930042-41-7 |
| Format: |
Hardcover,
127pp |
| Pub.
Date: |
1981
(Originally Published in Warsaw 1942) |
| Edition
Description: |
First
Edition |
| Series: |
MSM
#18 |
| |
$10.00
USD
|
Reviews
Description
Published
in German-occupied Warsaw, this underground anthology
of war poetry pays tribute to a spirit that, despite
coercion and violence, remained both independent and
invincible. That spirit moved the underground resistance
but also expressed itself as a simple will for survival
shared by the whole nation. The anthology reflects multifarious
reactions to the war: at times a warrior’s song and
a call to arms, it is also a complaint and cry of despair,
a philosophical reflection and a reaffirmation of faith.
Divided
into five sections, The Invincible Song follows the
evolution of intellectual and emotional responses to
the war, starting with prophetic forebodings of an approaching
catastrophe (poems written before 1939) and ending with
nostalgic evocations of a “paradise lost” (poems written
in emigration).
The most
surprising fact about this book is that when read in
1982, it has lost no relevance. Far from being a document
of the past, it addresses problems that are still alive
in Poland today: the problem of national survival, the
creation of social structures defying an imposed order,
the moral dilemmas facing the individual.
-
Bogdana Carpenter
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