Zbigniew Herbert at the Complete Review

A
Literary Saloon
&
Site of Review.

Trying to meet all your book preview and review needs.

Contents:
Main

the Best

the Rest

Review Index

Links

to e-mail us:

A Literary Saloon and Site of Review

Zbigniew Herbert
at the complete review:

Name: Zbigniew HERBERT

Nationality: Poland

Born: 29 October, 1924

Died: 28 July, 1998

Awards: Nicholaus Lenau Prize (1965)

Jerusalem Literature Prize (1991)

Graduated from:

University of Krakow, M.A., economics (1947)
Nicholas Copernicus University of Torun, M.A., law (1948)
University of Warsaw, M.A., philosophy (1950)

Was a member of the Polish Resistance during WW II

Return to top of page.

Bibliography

Highlighted titles are under review at the complete review

Selected Poems, trans. Czeslaw Milosz and Peter Dale Scott, 1968
Selected Poems, trans. John and Bogdana Carpenter, 1977
The Barbarian in the Garden - essays (1962) (trans. Michael March and Jaroslaw Anders, 1985)
Report from the Besieged City - poems (trans. J. and B. Carpenter, 1985)
Still Life with a Bridle - essays (trans. J. and B. Carpenter, 1993)
Mr Cogito - poems (1974) (trans. J. and B. Carpenter, 1993)
The King of the Ants - mythological essays (trans. J. and B. Carpenter, 1999)
Elegy for the Departure - poems (1956-90) (trans. J. and B. Carpenter, 1999)
Reconstruction of the Poet - Uncollected Works of Zbigniew Herbert (trans. Alissa Valles, 2024)

Please note that this bibliography refers only to works by Herbert translated into English and is not necessarily complete.

Return to top of page.

Quotes

What others have to
say about Zbigniew Herbert:

"Herbert's steadily detached, ironic and historically minded style represents, I suppose, a form of classicism. But it is a one-sided classicism (.....) In a way, Herbert's poetry is typical of the whole Polish attitude to their position within the communist bloc; independent, brilliant, ironic, wary, a bit conetmptuous, pained." - A. Alvarez, Under Pressure (1965)

"(H)is poems, even in English, seem to me finer than anything currently being written by any English or American poet." - A. Alvarez, The Mature Laurel (1991) (previously in The New York Review of Books, 18/7/1985)

"There is little doubt that at this writing Zbigniew Herbert is the most admired and respected poet now living in Poland. (...) Polish readers have always revered poets who succeed in defining the nation's spiritual dilemma; what is exceptional in Herbert is that his popularity at home is matched by a wide acclaim abroad." - Stanislaw Baranczak, A Fugitive from Utopia (1987)

"If the key to contemporary Polish poetry is the selective experience of the last decades, Herbert is perhaps the most skillful in expressing it and can be called a poet of historical irony. He achieves a sort of precarious equilibrium by endowing the patterns of civilization with meanings, in spite of all its horrors." - Czeslaw Milosz, Postwar Polish Poetry (3rd ed., 1983)

Return to top of page.

Pros and Cons
of the author's work:

Pros:

His succinct, emphatic moral voice and vision.
He does not kowtow to ideology.
His poetry is generally not too convoluted or stylistically complex.
His work is available in a relatively uniform voice in translation, via the Carpenters.

Cons:

Something does get lost in translation.
Firmly based in Western humanist tradition, Herbert may no longer be accessible to all.
The English offerings of his works are too limited and fragmented, representative of only part of his output.

Return to top of page.

the complete review's Opinion

     Polish poet and essayist Zbigniew Herbert easily stands beside Nobel Prize laureates Milosz and Szymborska, part of a remarkable literary tradition. Very much an Eastern European writer, his work is also of interest beyond that particular region (and those particular times).
      Herbert's anti-hero Mr.Cogito, subject of many of his poems, is one of the more inspired characters in modern literature, an ideal vehicle for Herbert's talents.
     Herbert's fascination with other subjects -- painting, for example, or other things Dutch -- served his poetry well, and also made for interesting subjects in his essays and short prose pieces.
     A very important author, who deserves to be more widely translated.

Return to top of page.

Links

Zbigniew Herbert:

Zbigniew Herbert at the Poetry Foundation
Fundacja Herberta
Zbigniew Herbert at Polska 2000
Zbigniew Herbert's Books at the complete review:

Elegy for the Departure (B+)
The King of the Ants (B-)
Mr Cogito (A+)
Reconstruction of the Poet (B+)
Report from the Besieged City (A)
Still Life with a Bridle (B+)
Other books of interest under review:

See Index of Poetry under review
See Index of Eastern European literature
See also: other Author Reviews

Return to top of page.