Writing Poetry after the End of the World

Abstract

Tadeusz Różewicz perceived World War II as an apocalyptic catastrophe that brought about the death of poetry. He acknowledged that existing means of expression were powerless in the face of the extermination of Jews, and that this inadequacy evidenced the exhaustion of earlier poetic forms. Różewicz felt compelled to confront this reality in his pursuit of a new kind of poetry. The complex work on the poem “Chaskiel” (1954–1956) is a particular realization of this task, revealing Różewicz's quest to express the inexpressible. In this process, a few significant factors played crucial roles, above all, meticulous structuring of the text, the poem's grounding in occupied Radomsko, the use of children's speech preserved in testimonies of persecuted and perishing children, references to the ideology of National Socialism as a context, and, finally, allusions to profound, deeply rooted religious and literary traditions.