Winter 2005

Czeslaw Milosz: The Ecstatic Pessimist

by Robert Royal

With the death last year of Czeslaw Milosz, the world lost a Nobel Prize–winning poet and a singular voice of the 20th century. A survivor of Nazism and communism, Milosz refused to regard the world bleakly—or to retreat into the romantic illusions that beckoned to many of his fellow intellectuals. His intimate verses declare the individual’s connection to history, his spiritual autonomy, and his innate dignity.


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  • Robert Royal is president of the Faith & Reason Institute for the Study of Culture and Religion in Washington, D.C.

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