MILOSZ - DAYLIGHT. Paris 1953
MILOSZ Czeslaw
DAYLIGHT
SWIATLO DZIENNE
Paris 1953. Literary Institute, pages 156, [8]; ("Culture" library. Volume 5); format 13,5x21,5 cm
SOFT PUBLISHING BINDING
Daylight - a volume of poems by Czeslaw Milosz published in Paris in 1953 as the fifth volume of the "Kultura" Library.
The first volume of Miłosz's poetry published in exile includes works mostly published in the years 1945-1950 in the pages of national magazines ("Odrowanie", "Nowa Polska", "Warszawa", "Twórczości", "Zeszyty Wrocławskie", "Nowa Kultura"), and from 1951 in the Paris-based Kultura. The poet explains in the introduction:
The title has a double meaning: There are a lot of things here that I couldn't publish in Poland; besides, poetry is for me a matter of the day rather than of the night.
The volume includes the author's series Świat (Naive Poems) (1943), two poems: Treatise Moralny and Toast, and translations of Negro poetry. The collection includes, among others the poem Who You Wounded, a fragment of which was placed on the Monument to the Fallen Shipyard Workers 1970 in Gdańsk.
The volume includes works written before Milosz made the decision to remain in exile - both during the occupation, in the country after the war, and during his stay in Washington, where he was employed as a cultural attaché. The volume of Daylight took an important place in Milosz's oeuvre. Along with the Moral Treatise, it set the boundaries of a compromise that should not be exceeded. Against the background of émigré poetry, he distinguished himself by a broader view of the affairs taking place in the country. He also explained the poet's personal entanglements.
VERY GOOD condition / parish on the pre-title card