In this paper the author examines the problems of reception of the Zbigniew Herbert’s poems and essays – from the first collection of poems entitled Struna światła to the latest writings of the reviewers and scholars. The reflections devoted to the “Herbertian” studies take into consideration various styles of reading, aesthetic preferences, axiology, applied methods of research, and ways of interpretation. The history of reading of the Herbert’s works is presented in the chronological, thematic and problem order. Discussed are the most important monographic books, studies and essays, which address the extensive range of issues, reveal a broad spectrum of styles and methods of reading, illustrate the long process of getting to know the Herbert’s work, and finally prove the great popularity of this creative work. From interpretation of several poems we pass to the attempts at generalization, from existential and metaphysic meanings – to the cultural reading. The library of texts devoted to the Herbert’s creative work is not a closed collection as still new articles and books appear, and the search for the “new Herbert” is supported by the new humanistic languages.

The article subjects to analysis the selected motifs of the Zbigniew Herbert’s poem Mr Cogito and the Imagination based on the draft copies of the work stored in the poet’s archive. The analysis of the manuscripts, which reveals a different, hidden aspect of the final text, allows to investigate what was omitted in the process of creation, e.g. the motif of Daedal and the reference to the Upanishads, and trace the development of the significant themes of the poem: a concept of identity and the notion of tautology.

The article is an attempt at philosophical reconstruction of the idea of eternal life present in the poetry of Zbigniew Herbert. The author focuses on demonstrating difficulties concerning both the heavenly (transcendental) eternity, which is a new form of human existence after death, and the mundane (immanent) eternity, which takes shape of the immortal fame (the memory of the generations) or the moments of eternity experienced sometimes by people (i.e. the lack of awareness of the passage of time). An example of the heavenly eternity is the immortality of the soul or the resurrection of the body; both of these possibilities mean, according to Herbert, a new (perfect and infinite) form of existence, completely alien to human nature (which is imperfect and finite). For this reason man doesn’t desire such eternity, as it would be a transformation of his nature into some other, non-human (divine or angelic) being. A model example of the mundane eternity are the in-depth experiences (e.g. an aesthetic contemplation of beauty), when the individual loses the awareness of the destructive passage of time, or even of the imminent death, and succumbs to the momentary illusion that their existence is eternal. Herbert, however, seems to accept a third possibility which is a way of sceptics, who don’t believe neither in the transcendental eternity nor in the mundane one and live in a continuous suspension between both these ways.

The article presents the history of Zbigniew Herbert’s work on the prose miniature devoted to mythological Narcissus. The analysis of the preserved manuscript versions serves to illustrate the multi-layer process of reinterpretation of the myth. Herbert in the “laboratory of the draft” tested various concepts of this reinterpretation. The Herbert’s text on Narcissus published in print reveal only to a limited degree the scale of the author’s invention in deconstructing and transforming the canonical versions of the Greek myth.

The subject of the essay are fates of women in the camps in Upper Silesia after the termination of World War 2. These camps secured primarily the isolation against the nationality verification and displacement or exploitation as a slave workforce. The author indicates that rape, terror and murder were the actions undertaken by the degenerated guards, often with sadistic inclinations, who felt their impunity. The determinants of these events and the dynamics of victimization are discussed. Gradually, the physical violence was replaced with exterminating labour. After release from the camps the women found it very difficult to adapt to new conditions of life. It was often difficult for them, if not impossible, to start a family and raise children. They were left t with deep trauma that haunted the former inmates until the end of their lives.

The article is an attempt at a reflection on the record of the experiences of women in the Stalin’s lagers. From the analytical perspective were reviewed the works of the Polish authors, inmates in the lagers: Beata Obertyńska, Barbara Skarga, Grażyna Lipińska, Herminia Naglerowa, Urszula Muskus. Their books constitute the most complete testimony of the lager experiences of women in the period of 1940–1955. These records were juxtaposed with the vision of a woman presented in Herling-Grudziński’s A World Apart, where in fact her role was confined to that of a sexual slave. The analysed works reveal much richer image of the everyday lager life of a woman. They do not question or reduce the role of sexual relations, but show the “fullness” of the lager existence of the inmates: their killing physical labour, the struggle for survival and preserving dignity, the desire for love and its horrible consequences. The analysis of the writings, however, forced the author to abandon the attempt to outline a general formula of the lager fate of a woman. Such attempt turned out to be impossible due to the fundamental differences in the status of particular lagers determined by the geographical span of the “Gulag Archipelago”, and the differences in their organization resulting from the political changes in the USSR during 1940–1955.

The article offers a commentary on the correspondence of Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz and Kazimierz Orłoś during 1958–1974. The author reconstructs the evolution of the relationship of the two authors – from the initial courtesy of a debutant towards the master to the cooling of their relations due to the peculiarity of the literary life in the “Polish People’s Republic”. The article presents two attitudes towards the reality of that time. The unequivocal political choices of Kazimierz Orłoś, so much different from the servilistic strategy adopted by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, were the reason that, despite the social affinities and the mutual respect for their work, the two writers had to part ways.