Czeslaw Milosz

1. By Jakub Jurski- Collaborator Kamil Pisula- Leader Joseph Laci- Secretary Dominik Pulawski- Manager Czeslaw Milosz

2. Meaning • When I die, I will see the lining of the world.The other side, beyond bird, mountain, sunset.The true meaning, ready to be decoded.What never added up will add Up, What was incomprehensible will be comprehended.- And if there is no lining to the world? If a thrush on a branch is not a sign, But just a thrush on the branch? If night and dayMake no sense following each other? And on this earth there is nothing except this earth? - Even if that is so, there will remainA word wakened by lips that perish, A tireless messenger who runs and runsThrough interstellar fields, through the revolving galaxies, And calls out, protests, screams. 

3. Analysis of Meaning • Czeslaw Milosz was a member of a resistance against the Nazi occupation. He wrote this poem to have an optimistic view of life which was almost impossible at the time. He write is in free verse with no rhyme scheme at all. By listing “sunset” in the final of three terms, the poet indicates the twilight of established orders, the fading of hopes and dreams, and the sad certainty that all beautiful things, must ultimately disappear and give way to blackness and night.“The true meaning” is a loaded phrase, including the word “true”, which elicits respect and derision. For the poet, the “true meaning,” the end of the story, the resolution of all things, will be revealed. The missing pieces of one’s broken life will come together and “add Up.” The capitalization of this little preposition, positioned at the very end, suggests that the open security of whatever questions have puzzled mankind will have found their peaceful termination. Milosz expresses his faithful belief of a world “beyond” this world.“There will remain,” continues the poet, “a word wakened by lips that perish.” “Perish” implies complete disappearance, without a trace. “Through interstellar fields, through the revolving galaxies—beyond the thrushes, the branches, the senseless night and day. And calls out, protests, and screams.” Milosz’s “Meaning” contends that life is not a joke. This one word lives and breathes in every one who believes.

4. Love • Love means to learn to look at yourselfThe way one looks at distant thingsFor you are only one thing among many. And whoever sees that way heals his heart, Without knowing it, from various ills—A bird and a tree say to him: Friend. Then he wants to use himself and thingsSo that they stand in the glow of ripeness. It doesn’t matter whether he knows what he serves: Who serves best doesn’t always understand. 

5. Analysis of Love • “Love,” published in 1945, presents Milosz’s philosophy of the sacred and his understanding of attachment and illusion. Though it is an early poem written by a poet who maintained his Catholic faith throughout his life, “Love” offers a view that is broader than any religious constraint, one that Milosz returns to again and again in later poems.For Milosz, love means having the grace to distance oneself from “I,” for “You are only one thing among many.” The ability to see all things as interconnected allows love to offer its most profound service. Even a tree or a bird knows us as “friend.” The poem itself—with its optimism, hope, and gentleness—helps the reader “heal his heart.”The line “without knowing it” foreshadows the elusive desire in the next stanza: “Then he wants to use himself and things / So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.” The words “glow” and “ripeness” infuse the poem with warmth. In the last line, lack of certainty is rewarded: “Who serves best doesn’t always understand.”

6. Similarities and differences • Both poems are more than a poem about oneself, but about a theme, like love, and the meaning of life and both are of a somber mood. Since Czeslaw wrote many poems during his time at the Warsaw ghetto, it influenced his writing to be melancholy. • Meaning is about trying to find the reasoning behind our world only to find there is none, while love is about how love teaches us to look differently at ourselves.

7. The life of Czeslaw • Czeslaw Milosz was born to Weronika and Aleksander Milosz on June 30, 1911, in Szetejnie, Lithuania (then under the domination of the Russian tsarist government). Milosz graduated from high school in 1929, and in 1930 his first poems were published in Alma Mater Vilnenis, a university magazine. In 1931 he co-founded the Polish avant-garde literary group "Zagary"; his first collection of verse appeared in 1933. After the war, he came to the United States as a diplomat for the Polish communist government, working at the Polish consulate first in New York, then in Washington. In 1980, Milosz was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. His other honors include an award for poetry translations from the Polish P.E.N. Center in Warsaw, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. He has written virtually all of his poems in his native Polish, although his work was banned in Poland until after he won the Nobel Prize. He has also translated the works of other Polish writers into English, and has co-translated his own works with such poets as Robert Hass and Robert Pinsky. His translations into Polish include portions of the Bible (from Hebrew and Greek) and works by Charles Baudelaire, T. S. Eliot, John Milton, William Shakespeare, Simone Weil, and Walt Whitman. Sadly he died on August 14,2004.

8. Historical and Social Background • 1911-Born and raised in Lithuania • Father worked as a civil engineer. • Published his first collection of poems (Poem of the Frozen Time) in 1932(Age 21). • Was associated with the catastrophist of the school of poets during the 1930s. • Predicted World War 2 • When the war began in 1939, and Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, Milosz worked with the underground Resistance movement in Warsaw, writing and editing several books published clandestinely during the occupation. • In 1951 he left this post and defected to the west. • Won Noble Prize in Literature in 1980 • Died August, 2004

9. Sun King~Jakub • A sun is born and lies alone • He gathers 8 jesters to circle his throne • It gives the third jester life as long as the king burns burns • But what happens when the sun no longer turns

10. Regret~Kamil • How do you go on knowing that you failedand all your friends have all suddenly disappeared • Can you see the shame on everyone's faceand your parents look at you like your the biggest disgrace • All this time you blamed everyone elsebut all along it was none other than yourself • Now your stuck here paying the price • You shouldn't regret the things you once wanted • For it is in your past and can't be forgotten • It can only be forgiven

11. Dominik • When I die, I will see the lining of the world.The other side, beyond bird, mountain, sunset.The true meaning, ready to be decoded.What never added up will add Up, What was incomprehensible will be comprehended.- And if there is no lining to the world? If a thrush on a branch is not a sign, But just a thrush on the branch? If night and dayMake no sense following each other? And on this earth there is nothing except this earth? - Even if that is so, there will remainA word wakened by lips that perish, A tireless messenger who runs and runsThrough interstellar fields, through the revolving galaxies, And calls out, protests, screams.

12. Clear SkiesJoseph • The Grand Dragon flys high • A lonely wizard walks by • He sees a shadow, the dragon swoops down for the kill • it was too late for the wizard. • Tunechi

13. Bibliography • "Czeslaw Milosz." - Poets.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 June 2013. • "Love." Shambhala Sun. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 June 2013. • Schaper, Arthur. N.p.. Web. 6 Jun 2013. <http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/arts-entertainment/poetry-analysis-meaning-by-czeslaw-milosz-240845.html>. • Rockwell Gray. "Milosz: The Poems." JSTOR. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 June 2013.