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HOW MUCH CAN ONE SAY? CONFESSIONAL POETRY AND CONFESSIONALISM OF POETRY

Summary/Abstract: This essay probes Miłosz’s attitude to confessional poetry, or rather it examines his stance on confessionalism as a seemingly irremovable element of any poetic utterance. By means of such terms as decorum, the referentiality of poetic language and its usefulness, it demonstrates why Miłosz himself refrained from overtly confessional modes of poetic utterance, drawing too heavily on the poet’s own experiences, which may in turn result in blurred distinctions between biography and literature. One of the reasons why the poet so intensely disliked excessive confessionalism is its intention to describe the speaker’s emotions, while according to the Polish poet, the main task of poetry is to celebrate the dazzling beauty of the outside world, whose existence transcends and surpasses the insignificantly small inner world of a troubled psyche. Last but not least, the usefulness of poetry, as Miłosz understood it, is that which enables poems written in diverse countries and epochs to intensify the contemporary reader’s sense of belonging to the large family of the human race.

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