In Milan by Czesław Miłosz
"In Milan" is a poem by Czesław Miłosz, written in France in 1955 and first published in his 1962 collection "Król Popiel i inne wiersze" (King Popiel and Other Poems). The poem reflects Miłosz's internal conflict as an artist, caught between the desire to create art that celebrates the beauty of life and the responsibility to address the political and historical realities of his time. It opens with reminiscences of the poet's earlier works on Italy, juxtaposed with a friend's critique that his art is overly politicized. Miłosz's response reveals his longing to embrace the sensual pleasures of existence, wishing to explore themes of nature and beauty—such as the moon, vineyards, and the taste of peaches—in his writing.
Despite his yearning to be a "poet of the five senses," Miłosz grapples with the weight of thought and responsibility in his poetry. He acknowledges the challenge of reconciling these two impulses, ultimately producing a work that is rich in emotion and vivid imagery, while still affirming his commitment to the importance of ideas in poetry. Through "In Milan," Miłosz navigates the tension between aesthetic pleasure and intellectual engagement, offering readers a deep exploration of the artist's role in society.
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In Milan by Czesław Miłosz
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of World Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1962 (collected in New and Collected Poems, 1931-2001, 2001)
Type of work: Poem
The Work
“In Milan,” which was written in France in 1955 but first published in his 1962 collection Król Popiel i inne wiersze (King Popiel, and other poems), expresses the conflict that Miłosz faced as an artist throughout his career. As “Dedication” shows, he felt compelled to use his art to bear witness to his time. Yet he always felt an equally strong attraction to embracing the beauty of existence and the pleasures of the senses, to transcending his experience of history through mysticism, nature, and art. These two impulses are apparent in the mix of poems that he chose to include in each of his collections. Occasionally, as for “In Milan,” they become the subject of the poems themselves.
The poem begins with two brief stanzas. The first recalls a time, years ago, when the impulse to celebrate the beauty of life led the poet to write poems on Italy. The second recounts a charge made by a friend as they walked at night through a piazza: that Miłosz’s art was “too politicized.” The third, longest stanza records Miłosz’s reply—a response that is both deeply felt and tinged with regret.
He would love to write poems about the beauty of the world, Miłosz says: “I am for the moon amid the vineyards . . . I am for the cypresses at dawn.” He could “compose, right now, a song/ on the taste of peaches, on September in Europe.” In fact, “I would like to gobble up/ All existing flowers, to eat all the colors./ I have been devouring this world in vain/ For forty years, a thousand would not be enough.” He would desperately like to be “a poet of the five senses”—because those senses are so powerful, because it would be easy to lose oneself in their pleasures—but “That’s why I don’t allow myself to become one.” Because “Thought has less weight than the word lemon,” it needs a poet to express it, to defend it, to insist on its importance.
In this poem, Miłosz manages to have it both ways. In a poem of ideas, which regretfully insists on his commitment to ideas in poetry, he creates an occasion that allows him to write exactly the kind of poem that he claims he must not allow himself to write: a poem full of beauty, emotion, and sensuous imagery.
Bibliography
Atlas, James. “Poet, Exile, Laureate.” The New York Times, October 10, 1980, p. A10.
Bayley, John. “Return of the Native.” The New York Review of Books 28 (June 25, 1981): 29-33.
Carnecka, Ewa, and Aleksander Fiut. Conversations with Czesław Miłosz. Translated by Richard Lourie. San Diego, Calif.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987.
Carpenter, Bogdana. “The Gift Returned: Czesław Miłosz and American Poetry.” In Living in Translation: Polish Writers in America, edited by Halina Stephan. New York: Rodopi, 2003.
Filkins, Peter. “The Poetry and Anti-Poetry of Czesław Miłosz.” The Iowa Review 19 (Spring/Summer, 1989): 188-209.
Haven, Cynthia, ed. Czesław Miłosz: Conversations. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2006.
Hoffman, Eva. “The Poet of the Polish Diaspora.” The New York Times Magazine, January 17, 1982, p. 29.
Jastremski, Kim. “Home as Other in the Work of Czesław Miłosz.” In Framing the Polish Home: Postwar Cultural Constructions of Hearth, Nation, and Self, edited by Bozena Shallcross. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2002.
Malinowska, Barbara. Dynamics of Being, Space, and Time in the Poetry of Czesław Miłosz and John Ashbery. New York: P. Lang, 2000.
World Literature Today 52 (Summer, 1978). Special issue on Miłosz.
Woroszylksi, Wiktor. “Miłosz in Polish Eyes.” The New Republic 84 (May 23, 1981): 28-31.