Escape is a short poem with only eight sentences in total. But in such a short poem, the sound, taste and picture of war are condensed. At the same time, the image of war is purified into the desire of mankind to get rid of evil and seek eternal truth in the burning image of "fire", and the survivor of war-"I"-becomes the symbol of truth seeker. In this way, poetry will transform from the realistic level to the symbolic level, from the concrete direction to the abstract direction, and the connotation of poetry will be polysemy, richness and interpretability. This poem has strong colors, dignified style and unique composition.
As a survivor of the failed Warsaw Uprising in August 1944, the poet experienced the whole process of Nazi German army's crazy suppression of the insurgents, mass slaughter of the residents in the city and burning the capital Warsaw to the ground. In this war, the poet witnessed the sacrifice of comrades-in-arms, the loss of relatives and the death of friends. In so many mixed memories of death, every scene, every scene, every face and every expression will be the poet's sad memory and the spiritual trauma that the poet will never heal. So, how does the poet condense all these memories into eternity?
In the first sentence of the short poem, the poet burns the cruelty of war in the eyes of readers through the image of "burning the city". However, after a fire in blood shed, I survived the fire, "looking back from the original field path", knowing that all this, as well as the footprints behind him, would be submerged by weeds. What happened? All the dead will tell God in heaven that we will "create new fierce tribes" and continue to open up a new world with the "sword of fire". The third to fifth sentences of this poem: "I said,' Let the grass cover our footprints … Let the dead explain to the dead what happened'" actually contains special historical content. 1The Warsaw Uprising in August, 944 was launched by the Warsaw Underground National Army in order to gain greater benefits from the Polish state power that was about to win. Because this conflicts with the political interests of the Soviet Union in Poland in the future, the Soviet Red Army in the suburbs of Warsaw just sat back and watched Warsaw razed to the ground by Nazi Germans without giving support, leaving Warsaw in ruins in this uprising. The poet also participated in the uprising. For this uprising, the poet declared fiercely in his poem: "Let the harsh prophet be silent in the fire", and only the dead can tell the truth. From the standpoint of humanitarianism, the poet gave the most painful evaluation to that period of history. However, we know that there will never be humanitarianism in politics, which is just the poet's wish and ideal. Therefore, although this poem is passionate and heroic to read, we can still feel the humanitarian sadness that comes out from time to time.
But the poet will not be depressed because of this, but will gain an unyielding strength and aspire to become a violent generation. Use the sword of fire, which symbolizes everything, to split the rotten land and rebuild a new world on the ruins. In this new world, there will be no more "evil" and "confused happiness", which will kill people's fighting spirit. So the poet said sadly and decisively, "Let's go." Yes, it's better to give up when everything can't be saved. Only by giving up can we give strength to move on and hope and courage to the future. So the "go" here corresponds to the first "escape" action at the beginning of the survivor "I" in the structure of the poem; At the same time, in the internal context of the poem, it also responds to the profound meaning of the title "escape"-throwing away everything in the past, including "evil" and "joy", and reborn in the phoenix nirvana.
The experience of World War II, including the failure of Warsaw Uprising in August 1944, had a considerable impact on the poet's life and creation. From the poem he wrote after the failure of the Warsaw Uprising, we can see that it is completely different from the indescribable sad, illusory and ethereal style and feelings in the poet's early poems. In this poem, the poet's emotions completely drifted from the early fantasy to the reality, and his style changed from light to dignified and gloomy. At the same time, the poet's prediction of the future also changed from early pessimism to optimism.
In addition, the poet milosz has always been famous for his exquisite poems, which are fully displayed in this short poem. This short poem is like the last scene of a war movie that is coming to an end: a war survivor looks back in a close-up, behind which is a city in flames, and faint guns can be heard in the distance. When he turned around, the flaming sun just rose at the end of the horizon, and then the movie ended in the protagonist's monologue. Through this unique film composition, the poet wrote a virtual story about the real war. All the specific images in the war were blurred, leaving only a strong image of the sea of fire and an indomitable image of the survivors. In this way, the connotation of poetry suddenly became ambiguous, with both practical significance and abstract symbols. This abstract symbol is that the city burned by a sea of fire corresponds to the city of Sodom burned by God in the Bible. This correspondence is that in the process of pursuing truth, human beings always take happiness as the price. Because sin and happiness are always two sides of the same coin.
It can be seen that in this short poem, the image of "burning the city" not only carries the poet's most painful memory, but also sublimates the connotation of the poem. At the end of the poem, the image of "the sword of fire" gives the survivors the strongest hope to continue to pursue the truth, and at the same time, the poem ends in the poet's prediction of the future world.
(Chen Chunmei)