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PART ISAN I<.EV IEW
Bein,R
was no longer a mere acc idental determi nation of essence... but
something w hich made the essence possible and actu al. . .. The bea rer
of aesthetic value is th e concrete orga ni sm in all the complexi
ty
of its
relati ons. . .. Aquinas held th at clarity ri ses fi'om below, fi'om the heat
of things.... Physical light is '3 consequ ence of the subst31ltial fo rm of
th e
SUIl.'
Against a Platonic affini ty for disembodied Forms, scholas tic realism saw fo rm
as necessarily embodi ed in existing substance. To mcdieva l scholas ti cism , the
realm of petiect forms is the very world surrounding us, no t an abstract World
of Forms on another plain . T he j oyous meeting of mind with fo rm takes
place on the human earth . Thi s j oy is everywhere in Mil osz's cycl e.
At the same time, the world is as it is and must be as it is. Even in the
perfec t being of the scholastic world , the human crea ture encounters philo–
sophic necessity. Things calmo t be o ther than they are, and if there are to be
rocks, they will hurt human feet. The th eo ry of being whi ch is enunciated
in Milosz's poems on the three virtu es shows being to be external to us, sub–
sisting apart from our perceptio n of it, no t framed for our comfo rt , not
anthropocentri c. The earth was; it is; it will be. We exist o n th e ea rth as trees
and fl owers do, and all of us, beca use of the sun , " th row shadows on the
earth ." The world is substance to o ur shadow, and th e poem " Hope"
declares a scholas ti c fa ith in the noumenal existence behind phenomena.
In C hri sti an doctrine, fa ith , hope, and love are call ed th e " theological"
virtues because they have
to
do with th e human rel ati o n to God (whil e
prudence, justice, fo rtitude, and temperance, th e "cardinal" virtu es, have to
do with relati ons with oth er human beings). By seculari zing fa ith , hope,
and love into virtues relating hUlllan beings
to
the ca rth , Mil osz substitutes
fo r God the perfec t wo rld o f hi s poem .
It
sho uld be added that the wo rd
fo r " love" in Poli sh, "mil osc ," is a homonym for th e poet's own name. He
must often have medi tated on that co in cidence ; and th e extrao rdinary
meaning he arrives at fo r thi s third and mos t impo rtant o f th e virtues
demands some explanation: " Love means to lea rn to look at yourself / The
way one looks at di stant things / Fo r you are o nl y o ne thing amon g many."
Thi s is to learn the obj ectivi ty essenti al to the arti st, and the sympathy
essential to loving o ne's neighbor. Th e privil ege of the ego is forgone, and
with that renunciati on the wounds to th e ego are hea led .
In
the Poli sh o riginal, th e second stanza o f " Love" rhymes th e ve rb " to
use" with the noun "servant" : the poet will use things, no t for hi s own
ends, but as the serva nt of the ri peness toward whi ch he and they bo th tend .
Pointed rhymes of thi s sort and plays on wo rds like the one o n wo rld
(S /Iliat)
and light
(s /Ilia/o)
are fi'eguent in Milosz's Poli sh. Milosz's di ction in thi s
