Ordering the World. The Aims of Art in Zbigniew Herbert’s Letters
Ordering the World. The Aims of Art in Zbigniew Herbert’s Letters

Summary/Abstract: The Polish version of the article was published in Roczniki Humanistyczne vol. 57, issue 1 (2009).This article is devoted to Zbigniew Herber’s thoughts concerning esthetics. The author interprets the poet’s letters written to various people (among others, to Halina Misiołkowa, Czesław Miłosz and Jerzy Zawieyski) and looks for his opinions on art and creativity. He treats the letters not as auxiliary materials for the study of poetry, but as the main subject of his research. He perceives the transition from private letters to writing poetry as a consequence of the axiological connections joining both of these types of expression. He pays special attention to Herbert’s care for the consciousness of the aims of art, stemming from historical experience. The poet himself defined them in one of the letters as “ordering the world.”

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