Eliot Stanisława Barańczaka

Abstract

This essay shows the influence of the poetry of T.S. Eliot on the works of Stanisław Barańczak. Barańczak translated the most important of Elliot’s poems into Polish: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Journey of the Magi and the last poetic work of Eliot Little Gidding from Four Quartets. He is also the author of English metaphysical poetry anthology of the seventeenth century, referring to Eliot’s famous review of the anthology Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the Seventeenth Century: Donne to Butler. Barańczak’s references to Eliot are situated outside the dominant motif in Polish: both classical and metaphysical. The article shows how the metaphors and topics seen in his translations came into Barańczak’s own poems. Moreover, it explains how Barańczak was initially inspired by Eliot’s poetics.