Fugitives from Utopia: Polish Poets Across the Iron Curtain
SLAVIC 177
Subject & Catalog Number
Course Information
Description
Immigrants and travelers, dissidents and eccentrics—there were many ways Polish poets created spaces of personal freedom from the communist regime and the discourse of propaganda. In poetry, they contrasted utopian slogans with reality, but they also questioned more generally the idea of any human-made collective paradise, choosing instead irony, distrust, and singularity. In this course, we will study Polish poetry as embedded in the lived experiences of home meetings and experiments with tape recording, censorship and internal exile, struggles with emigration and translations into English, as well as dramatic decisions whether to stay abroad or come back from one’s journeys. We will read poems by Czeslaw Milosz, Wislawa Szymborska, Zbigniew Herbert, and Adam Zagajewski, alongside many other authors.
Course Notes
All readings in English. Students who would like to read Polish texts in the original may arrange a special section with the instructor.
Available for Harvard Cross Registration
