Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2007
Publication Title
Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History
Abstract
Our paper traces the development of Yiddish poet Abraham Sutzkever's imaginative engagement with the Polish Romantic Cyprian Norwid. Sutzkever expressed a strong affinity with Norway in his youth due to commonalities in their artistic vision. He also saw in this poetic dialogue a means to transcend the crisis in Polish-Jewish relations. In order to demonstrate the aesthetic and political stakes of this relationship, we discuss Sutzkever's early poem "Cyprian Norwid" and his translations of Polish poetry into Yiddish in 1930s. It has previously been assumed by scholars that Sutzkever's postwar poem "Tsu Poyln" (To Poland) marked a definitive break with Polish literary culture. However, as we show, Sutzkever continued to be influenced by Norwid through his period of poetic maturation. Many of Sutzkever's postwar poems are framed as subtle responses to Norwid's—commenting and expanding upon the latter's philosophical and aesthetic responses to Polish history. As an indelible representation of human fragility and transitoriness, art constitutes, for Sutzkever, the best response he can give to the losses and tragedies which he witnessed.
Volume
27
Issue
3
First Page
427
Last Page
473
Rights
© 2007 by Prooftexts Ltd.
Recommended Citation
Cammy, Justin and Fliglerowicz, Marta, "Translating History Into Art: The Influences of Cyprian Kamil Norwid in Avrom Sutzkever’s Poetry" (2007). Jewish Studies: Faculty Publications, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/jud_facpubs/3
Comments
Archived as published.