UNDERSTANDING "THE WORLD"
They tied the hands of man wi th barbed wire.
And dug shallow graves at the edge of the wood.
There would be no truth in his last testament.
They wanted him anonymous for good.
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Against that anonymity of the mass graves of World War II stands "The
World." It too is "anonymous for good," but with the anonymity of art.
"What power," Milosz asks, "can restore life to shadows?" He adds that
"whatever is restored to brilliance becomes, so to speak, a moment torn from
the throat of motion, a testament to the durabili ty of even the most ephemer–
al
instant." In Milosz's sequence, the child of Europe lives again, and his
resurrected pre-war world glistens in its twenty pure manifestations. Framed
in ashes, it shines in the reflected sunlight of language. Charmed by its invi–
tation, we step into it again : "There, where you see a green valley. ..."
Robert Pinsky:
I have very little to add
to
Helen Vendler's demonstration
of this great work's humanity and penetration and Robert Hass's demon–
stration of its originality and complexity. But I have two ideas. One is
about translation and the other about the poem "The World."
The idea about translation, based on the famous essay by Walter
Benjamin, "The Task of the Translator," is that this poem by Czeslaw Milosz
is the best translation that will ever be made of a mysterious original in the
mind of God written in the language fj-om before the Tower of Babel. No
translation can ever approach the accuracy and brilliance of Milosz's transla–
tion of that ineffable, mysterious, and complex original. However, the
Japanese, Swedish, Korean, Italian, and English translations-if they are
strong-register the impact of "The World" upon each new language_
According to Benjamin's theory, those translations have triangulated a bit,
have moved somewhat to the side, and thus give a little more information that
even the great translation cannot give about that original in the mind of God.
This is one of the justifications for what has been called the impossi–
ble act of translation. To use a language I know somewhat,
pane
is not
bread.
If you want that substance you can get it by saying
palle
or
bread;
but in a
poem,
pallc
is not
brcad.
In Italian they don't say, as good as gold. They say,
as good as bread.
Panc
is a Latinate word in a Romance language primari–
ly and almost exclusively made of Latinate words.
Bread
is a Germanic root
in a language that is very sensi tive to the difference between Romance or
Latinate roots and Germanic roots.
Enacted theoretically and in a very precise way, translation is impossible,
but in another way it can contribute to an understanding of the work, the
wayan essay of literary criticism might do. What Benjamin calls a "strong
