Spotkanie z Wielką Matką. Sztuka paleolityczna w twórczości Wisławy Szymborskiej i Zbigniewa Herberta
A Meeting With Great Mother. Paleolithic Art in Wisława Szymborska’s and Zbigniew Herbert’s Writings

Summary/Abstract: A feature of 20th century art was an attempt at reaching the cultural tradition older than Greek-Roman Antiquity. Worth noticing is the artists’ confrontation with the products of paleolithic culture that offers a unique kind of hermeneutic experience since it consists in a journey to the beginnings of the art. Wisława Szymborska’s and Zbigniew Herbert’s writings contain pieces which recall the most widely known paleolithic culture artifacts: rock paintings and women figurines (Great Mother). Confronting the relics of prehistoric art, the authors tried to return to the most primordial forms of thinking. Szymborska, through her philosophical investigations, reaches the attitude of wisdom, while Herbert, shaping his statements into a prayer, conforms to religious one. Both cases prove that the two Polish poets strived to oppose instrumental reason’s arrogation which reifies a man’s relation to the world.

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