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Wislawa Szymborska (1923-present)

Wislawa Szymborska (1923-present). Early Life. Born July 2, 1923 in Bnin (now Kornik ), a small town in Western Poland Moved at age eight to Krakow in 1931, where she has lived her entire life. Her family lived near a railway station in which she gained inspiration for later poetry.

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Wislawa Szymborska (1923-present)

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  1. WislawaSzymborska(1923-present)

  2. Early Life • Born July 2, 1923 in Bnin (now Kornik), a small town in Western Poland • Moved at age eight to Krakow in 1931, where she has lived her entire life. Her family lived near a railway station in which she gained inspiration for later poetry. • Witnessed Nazi occupation of Poland during WWII; effect of Stalinism on Poland • Studied Polish literature and Sociology at Jagellonian University from 1945 until 1948 • Jobs: poetry editor (1953-1981 at ŻycieLiterackie (“Literary Life”)), columnist (“Non-Required Reading,” 1968-1981), secretary, office clerk, poet, illustrator • First poem she wrote debuted in 1945, “Szukamslowa” (“I am looking for a word”) • Inspired by illegal films; attended classes and the theater illegally under post-WWII Communist rule

  3. Politics • Her first book was published in 1949, but it initially did not pass censors because it “did not meet socialist requirements.” • Early fascination with Socialism; signs petitions and vocalizes support for Stalin, Lenin, and socialist ideology • 1953: participated in the groundless persecution and condemnation of Catholic priests by the ruling party • Like most Polish intellectuals, she quietly turns fromSocialist beliefs in 1960s; officially leaves the Polish United Workers Party in 1966 • 1964: participates in a protest against government ruling against The Times (larger issue: independence of intellectuals and freedom of speech) • Communists gained power; tightened cultural policy and Szymborska’s work is deemed “too complex” and “bourgeois” • 1980s: labor and cultural revolution; 1981: martial law declared by ruling (but weakened) communist party; 1989: Poland’s first democratic parliamentary election • Avoids political commentary in later work, except in her human rights work. “Apolitical poems are political too.”

  4. Later Years • She later retracted her first two years of poetry, beginning in 1945, and has not allowed them to be published since. • Married poet Adam Wlodek in 1948, but divorced in 1954. Later partnered with another Polish writer, but he died of prolonged illness in the early 1990s. • "For the last few years my favourite phrase has been 'I don't know'. I've reached the age of self-knowledge, so I don't know anything. People who claim that they know something are responsible for most of the fuss in the world." • Known for quick wit and sense of humor, humility, and lack of travel/public presence • Not antisocial—merely feels that public events/exposure for writers is mostly fanfare and a waste of creative energy

  5. Humility, Wit, or Craziness? • On why she received the Nobel Prize: • "It all happened because of a friend in the States. It's all because of his sofa. Just before getting his Nobel Prize Czeslaw Milosz [1980] sat on this sofa, then Seamus Heaney [1995] sat on it and he won the prize, and then it happened that I sat on it, and then I got the prize! It's a magic sofa!"

  6. Honors • 1954: City of Krakow prize for literature • 1963: Polish Ministry of Culture prize • 1991: Goethe Prize • 1995: Herder Prize • 1995: honorary doctorate Adam Mickiewiscz University • 1996: PEN Club Prize • Nobel Prize for literature in 1996 • Has written around 200 poems and only 13 slim volumes in her career (~7-10 years per volume)—possibly the least prolific Nobel Laureate in history • Reason for sparse writing: “I have a wastebasket in my study.” • Jan. 17, 2011: Order of the White Eagle (Poland’s highest honor)

  7. Poetic Ideas/Traits • Style: Marked simplicity, irony, understatement, “underlying complexity”, paradox, contradiction, introspection, wit • Not known for, but uses: anaphora, pathetic fallacy, repetition, and varying tones (satiric, mocking, inquisitive, hopeful, etc.) • “approach, not reproach” • Early poetry was problematic because she tried “to love humankind, not humans” (common mentality under Stalinism) • Expresses pessimism/skepticism about the future of mankind, but still maintains the belief that words have a powerful effect on people (“joy of imagination”) • Focus on minute details, brevity of life, death, war

  8. A Cat in an Empty ApartmentWislawaSzymborska

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