Sign Inventory, Week Six

"Betrayal" by Adam Zagajewski

The greatest delight, I sense,
is hidden sublimely in the act of betrayal
which can be equal only to fidelity.
To betray a woman, friends, an idea,
to see new light in the eyes
of distant shadows. But choices are
limited: other women, other
ideas, the enemies of our
long-standing friends. If only
we could encounter some quite different
otherness, settle in a country which has
no name, touch a woman before
she is born, lose our memories, meet
a God other than our own.


Sign Inventory:

• poem using blank verse 
• poem using a lot of abstract language/imagery/ideas 
• text playing around with a lot of sensual imagery and language as well
• one reason why the writer might be playing around with sensual rhetoric and imagery to highlight/underscore the notion(s) of solitude, expressions of joy and 'greatest delight' breaking into fruition when the narrator finally stops and rethinks the landscape, the people around... to visualize communication and relationship with these things in a new perspective, a new (perhaps more exciting) light... one that is actually very "dark"  (i.e., 'betrayal')
• the text creates a juxtaposition between abstractions, from the very beginning: betrayal/fidelity. The narrator chooses to describe the how 'sublimely' wonderful "the act of betrayal" actually is by way of comparing the euphoria to fidelity... a very harsh juxtaposition; one that many would consider completely unrelated on all accounts. 
• the narrator then goes on to envision a different place, a displaced location that has yet to be established, or better yet colonized/conquered. In doing this, the narrator shifts to a more subtle form on betrayal... in a sense, a type of historical and cultural betrayal that has occurred through acculturation, assimilation, and cultural/historical reformation.
• through this, the narrator also (although through melancholy tonal register) adds a taste of situational irony and humor... because the narrator knows very well that finding any of these things cannot be discovered or found because of modernization and the vast progression of culture