The Hymnic Code in the Poetry of Czesław Miłosz

Abstract

Hymnic genre awareness in Czesław Miłosz`s poetry is included into metadiscursive statements. Poetic sel-commentary often leads to encapsulating the entire work in the hymnic genre. The hymn becomes an identification of the author`s poetics and develops into a literary type. The author of the sketch questions for the proper understanding of the hymn in reference to all found in Miłosz`s poetry direct indications of genre correlations as well as for the modes in which other ways the hymnic tradition are summoned. Is there a nonthematized hymn in this poetry and, if so, in what way can it exist? From his debut until "Last poems" (Wiersze ostatnie) Miłosz is observed to carry out a lon-lastin process of codification of the qualities of hymnic expression which is being accomplished in a constant dialogue with the forms already attested. Reffering to the analysis of metatextual statements found in Miłosz`s poetic texts, the article concludes that the use of the term in question goes beyond its narrow literary genetics meaning. The Polish poet seems to be drawing on the ancient synonymy of the term of "hymnos" and poetic creativity at large. The objective of the analysis is the mode such awareness is reflected in hymnographic production. The presence of hymnic code is seen as one of the elements which unites Miłosz`s literary output. Miłosz`s notion of hymn crosses the limits of his poetics. Hymnicity, then, stems from experiencing the sacred but is primarily viewed as an existential project. Miłosz`s "living in hymn" reminds of Hoilderlin`s hymnicity.