THE TEACHER AND HIS STUDENTS
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the selfish purpose of escaping his own form and of course betrayed him–
self because this dragged him in other directions. Any rebellion against
form creates a new form, and that quickly changes into its opposi teo As
quoted by Milosz, Gombrowicz said: "1 think; therefore 1 am not." And
"Milosz, in not wanting to be Milosz, became more Milosz."
Here are some of the aphorisms that he shared with us in class. First, sev–
eral from StanislawJerzy Lee: "The window to the world can be covered with
a newspaper." "What do you do when you find your wife's lover in bed with
another woman?" "Are naked women intelligent?" "I had a dream about
reality; such a relief
to
wake up." And now from Milosz, on literature and
writing: "Writing about your own life, when you attempt to be sincere, you
lie; artificiality allows a type of truth; besides, sincerity is a bore." "Literature
about literature is the most ghastly." "Anyone engaged in a world of culture
must pretend, since you couldn't possibly have read all of that." "Literature is
suspect: honest people don't write." "All the literature of Europe conies from
a combination of the sublime, and the grotesque." "Li terature can have extra–
ordinary power in a country where the past is transformed every few years."
"Poetry is betrayed by words. True poetry is without words. A true poet
should be unaware, and shouldn't write." "To create art, you must not be
completely human; the observation thus necessary is an inhuman quality.
Good people act on the misfortune of others rather than observe from a dis–
tance and think of themselves." " ( write what 1 like, and not for their
consumption." "The highest praise a poet can receive is to have his works
become completely anonymous, while people sing and quote them every–
where." And finally, "I can be very intelligent, or stupid, depending on the
audience." Someone in those classes must have been brilliant.
Richard Lourie:
Before coming here, 1 checked on what Czeslaw had said
about me in
The ABC Book.
He recalled from our first meeting in Berkeley
in 1960 that ( was "slovenly and dishevelled." I fully agree! To some degree
this was programmatic and ideological. But when I read those two words, 1
pondered about the person I was then and the person 1 have become. After
he had given me a bad mark he called me in for a conversation. During class,
he had read my bluebook aloud without identifYing its author, and said,
"This essay is reasonably well-written, but betrays a perfect American lack
of any sense of history." I remember burning with shame and vowing,
inwardly, to hell with him! I'll get one of those! I'll get a sense of history if
it kills me! And I can't tell you how aggravated ( was about twenty years later
when I read in something by Milosz: "My whole life has been a struggle to
be free of history." By then I felt ( had achieved it and felt stuck with it!
1 want to talk about Czeslaw Milosz as a teacher in a non-classroom
sense, because, from that initial conversation emerged a kind of sympathy
