Mira Rosenthal

Examining the career of Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz from the perspective of his translation work, this dissertation contends that a translation travels in two directions: first when a work of literature crosses from one language to another, and second when knowledge of the translation recrosses back to the original literary culture. As a political exile from Communist Poland living in the US, Milosz is a prime example of a translator manipulating this process of travel, using translation into English as a way first to preserve, then to broaden, and finally to canonize literature in Poland. Thus, this study involves more than an analysis of one poet’s translation work; it informs current translation theory to account for the subtler ways translation wields power in both literary cultures at once.