Styl przekładów biblijnych i protest song Czesława Miłosza. Narracja generacyjna wobec archaiczności

Abstract

Jarosław Płuciennik UNIVERSITY OF ŁÓDŹ Style of Biblical Translations and Czesław Miłosz’s Protest Song: Generational Narrative in Relationship with Archaism This article examines the style of Czesław Miłosz’s Biblical translations into Polish, with particular emphasis on the final verse of Psalm 137, one of the most frequently discussed sections of the Book of Psalms and one of its most present in popular culture (e.g. in Boney M.’s song By the Rivers of Babylon). Płuciennik treats his personal experience with Miłosz’s Psalms as a part of a greater generational narration that perceives those psalms in the context of the political protest songs of the 1970s and 80s. A key point of reference for Miłosz is the Biblical testimony, which also derives from the Old Testament. In this sense, Płuciennik argues, Miłosz is at once more archaic than other Polish poets (both the Romantics and more modern ones such as Zbigniew Herbert), and at the same time, paradoxically, he is more modern. One of the most important factors in the development of Miłosz’s thinking is the Old Testament idea of justice.