Herberta Lekcja Białoszewskiego – czyli o związkach semantyki z etyką
“Białoszewski’s Lesson” by Zbigniew Herbert, or: The Relationship between Semantics and Ethics

Summary/Abstract: Kluba presents the transcript of “Białoszewski’s Lesson,” a hitherto unknown poem by Zbigniew Herbert. Key to understanding this work – a draft of which survives in the poet’s archive – is the relationship between semantics and ethics. Kluba reads “Białoszewski’s Lesson” as a unique reflection on the poet’s duties and powers in a situation that Herbert diagnoses as a state of “semantic collapse”. The poem is part of Herbert’s opposition to this state, which marks his essays in the 1990s. But its actual goal is not so much to analyse the barbarization of language – it is to reflect on the helplessness of poetry in the face of this phenomenon.

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