Literary critic Roger Lundin discusses the place of William Blake (1757–1827) in Anglo-American cultural history. Lundin situates William Blake as a descendant of the radical Protestant movement of the 17th century and as a forerunner of the late 19th and early 20th century movements that put theology and the human spirit in opposition to the natural, fragmented, fallen world. For Blake, the primary hope for the human race to overcome its existential alienation was to preserve and nurture the human spirit and imagination — to cleanse “the doors of perception” and see the world aright. These views place Blake at the very center of foundational shifts in Western thinking about the nature of truth, language, and God.
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Readers often miss the deeper themes in the late poet Czesław Miłosz’s work, says professor Roger Lundin, because they focus instead on his political reputation. As Lundin discusses those themes and reads from Miłosz’s work, he notes that Miłosz’s career spanned seventy years — a fact evidenced in the publication of New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001 in 2003 — only a portion of the writing from which encompasses political themes. Instead of merely praising ideologies above all else in his poetry, he chronicled the particulars of life. He understood the work of the poet (and poetry) as that of bearing witness to the ordinariness and goodness of life, to the beauty of creation and cultural memory. Miłosz (1911-2004), who was born in Vilnius and died in Krakow, lived outside of his homeland for most of his adult life. Consequently, notes Lundin, his poetry bears the stamp of the longings and sensibilities unique to those who have known exile. Lundin reads one of Miłosz’s poems that testifies to his dedication to the Polish language while in a foreign land, “My Faithful Mother Tongue.” In addition to demonstrating that Miłosz paid tribute to his native language in his poetry, it also captures Miłosz’s understanding of the balance between the urgency and importance of the poetic task, and a realistic humility about the capacity of the poet. Miłosz knew people need order and beauty in the midst of misfortune; while the poet is not capable of eradicating misfortune, he can provide measures of order and beauty by setting “little bowls of color” before a language.
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