Nanomoments and Eons: The Question of Time in Contemporary Polish Poetry (A Reconnaissance)

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Abstract:

The article deals with the manifestation and representation of time in contemporary Polish poetry. The focus of the interpretation, which is an attempt at a philosophical-essayistic reflection on chronocentrism, is on the experience of time by the human subject: modern and postmodern man. The discussed areas of metaphorization (the technologizing metaphors, the metaphors of acceleration), figurations and ways of thematization of the temporal questions reflect the contemporary experience: the “un-time” of life, the compression of time, the trauma of temporality, the relativity of humanistic time in regard to the physical time of the clock. The poetry, as the inscribing of the “punctual, present”, illustrates the power of time over the human subject; it becomes the resonator of its own epoch. The microanalyses of Miłosz’s, Szymborska’s, Zagajewski’s, Baran’s and Lipska’s poems display the opposite poles of time: the momentary flashes – nanomoments and eons – “centuries of eternity”.

Keywords:

Miłosz, Zagajewski, nanomoments, eons, metaphors of acceleration, the “un-time” of life.

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