„Przed progiem pytania”. Inspiracje „postawą religijną” presokratyków w poezji Zbigniewa Herberta
“On the Threshold of Asking.” The “Religious Attitude” of the Pre-Socratics as a Source of Inspiration in Zbigniew Herbert’s Poetry

Summary/Abstract: More and more papers are being written on religious and metaphysical motifs in Zbigniew Herbert’s poetry. In this article I try to show how Herbert drew inspiration from the way of recognizing gods by the pre-Socratics, who were active in times of crisis of the traditionally understood religion and who faced the collapse of the then system of beliefs. I show that in his poetry, Herbert often talks not about the mythological gods, but about gods referred to by the first philosophers, who were just beginning to work out the philosophical concepts. At a time when Homer was still the model of the narrative, the first philosophers began to construct general notions largely based on rational reasoning and observation but originating from basic intuitions. I make a claim that when attempting to depict Herbert’s religious search, one should consider traces of inspiration visible in his work and coming from the questions and everything that contributed to both these questions and the cosmic, metaphysical and religious beliefs, of the intellectual formation whose representatives were Xenophanes, Heraclitus and also Democritus and Anaxagoras. These philosophers used gods rather as rhetorical figures, which Herbert himself noted in an interview. Traces of the pre-Socratics are present not only in the words of Zbigniew Herbert, but also in many of his poems, in correspondence, as well as his essays, plays, and poetic prose.

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