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America and Europe: The Two Worlds of Józef Wittlin
Ist Teil von
The Polish review (New York. 1956), 2017-01, Vol.62 (1), p.61-80
Ort / Verlag
University of Illinois Press
Erscheinungsjahr
2017
Link zum Volltext
Quelle
Alma/SFX Local Collection
Beschreibungen/Notizen
Józef Wittlin was born near Lvov, and then from the 1920s stayed in Łódź and Warsaw, as well as various locations in Italy, France, and Yugoslavia. In 1939 he left Poland and in 1941 settled in the United States. After this, his life and work were marked by a clear tension between Europe and America. He definitively assessed the achievements of European culture positively, especially when it came to such countries as France, Italy, and Spain. In his published essays on the United States he appreciated the democratic achievements of this country, the freedom of speech, and its prosperity. At the same time, in his private letters and notebooks he wrote very critically about life in America. There is no doubt, however, that with the prolonged period of emigration, and finally the decision to stay overseas, the attitude of the writer to the country in which he settled evolved. While his essays published in the early 1940s talk about his unquenchable longing for Europe, those from the 1950s show the invigorating impact of its culture on the shape of America and the importance of the American gains for Europeans. Europe and America are, therefore, two cultural areas between which Wittlin remained torn, but which he also wanted to creatively reconcile in himself as well as in his writings, and was looking for the possibilities for their mutual enrichment.