On the Shoulders of Giants
On the Shoulders of Giants

Summary/Abstract: The dispute between Herbert and Miłosz may be interpreted against the background of one of the major personal disputes in Polish cultural history: the_legendary antagonism between Mickiewicz and Słowacki. The polemics between the bards, irrespective of emigrant gossip or scholarly folklore, had a permanent axis, with regard to which the two developed fundamentallyy different attitudes. The touchstone was their view of the chivalric idea. For Słowacki, it was the_universal symbol of humanity, whereas Mickiewicz betrayed that idea in Konrad Wallenrod and caricatured it in Pan Tadeusz. A_shade of that old dispute emerges in the polemics between Herbert and Miłosz: Herbert’s view is close to Słowacki’s apotheosis of the princes of Polish historical memory: the knight Zawisza the Black and the priest Father Marek.

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