TY - JOUR
TI - Inhuman Immortality: Some Philosophical Remarks on the Idea of Eternity in the Poetry of Zbigniew Herbert
AU - Ziemiński, Ireneusz
TI - Inhuman Immortality: Some Philosophical Remarks on the Idea of Eternity in the Poetry of Zbigniew Herbert
AB - 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.
VL - 2018
IS - Volume 15 Issue 1
PY - 2018
SN - 2083-7658
C1 - 2353-1991
SP - 41
EP - 64
DO - 10.4467/23531991KK.18.003.8769
UR - https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/konteksty-kultury/article/nie-ludzka-niesmiertelnosc-kilka-filozoficznych-uwag-na-temat-idei-wiecznosci-w-poezji-zbigniewa-herberta
KW - Zbigniew Herbert
KW - philosophy
KW - poetry
KW - death
KW - immortality
KW - eternal life