Poets and Literature Experts: On the Educational Value Dialogues of Czesław Miłosz and Tomas Venclova, as well as of Tadeusz Różewicz and Karl Dedecius

Abstract

Dialogues between poets and literature experts, including translators, may relate to a number of matters. Not infrequently, these are problematic topics stored in the memory and associated with difficult relations between nations, as well as with the search for ways to discover and build a literary and cultural community and a bridge based on understanding between people of different nationalities. The aim of the article is to focus attention on selected, not always easy, dialogues between Czesław Miłosz and Tomas Venclova, Tadeusz Różewicz and Karl Dedecius. Both the subject matter of the written exchange of ideas that takes place between them, and the ways in which the conversations/discussions are conducted, open up many important issues. The latter involves the broadly understood value of these dialogues both for writers and experts on their works and for contemporary readers – high school students.