![\"The](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/455\/2013\/06\/milosz-polish.jpg\")
<\/a>Zbigniew Herbert (1924-1998) is one of the two greatest Polish poets of the 20th century. \u00a0He is part of a poetic duo, or duel, with Czeslaw Milosz. \u00a0Milosz was more of a mystic, Herbert a skeptic. \u00a0Milosz was almost always critical of Poland, whereas Herbert entrenched himself within the Polish tradition. \u00a0I want to avoid the dreaded words \u201cnationalist\u201d or \u201cpatriot,\u201d but Hebert was both in the best sense. \u00a0It\u2019s possible to be both without undercutting the universal reach of one\u2019s writing. \u00a0Michael Hofman, the translator of German literature (oh the irony!), confirms this what he said in Poetry<\/i><\/a> some years back:<\/p>\n \u201cZbigniew Herbert died in 1998. He was a very great and idiosyncratic poet\u2014something in me wants to say a peerless poet\u2014and, it is reported, a perennial Nobel bridesmaid. It was ironic\u2014and no doubt wounding\u2014that during the period of his expectations, in 1980 and 1996, two other Poles of, as I see it, manifestly lesser gifts and importance, Czeslaw Milosz and Wislawa Szymborska, were chosen by the Academy and decorated by Carl Gustav.\u201d<\/p>\n The rivalry with Milosz resurfaces in those comments. \u00a0There\u2019s even a quasi-mythological dinner party quarrel between the two poets documented by Cynthia Haven here in the post on \u201cThe Worst Dinner-Party Ever.\u201d \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n More biographical and bibliographical information is available\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cMr. Cogito Tells of the Temptation of Spinoza\u201d [Mr. Cogito is a persona Herbert frequently used to disabuse his readers of their Cartesian prejudices. \u00a0While reading this poem it\u2019s important to remember how much Spinoza fought the biblical notion of a personal God. \u00a0Spinoza\u2019s god was an impersonal force. \u00a0Think back to Simone Weil\u2019s comments in yesterday\u2019s post here<\/a>.]<\/p>\n Baruch Spinoza of Amsterdam in the attic he spoke for a long time \u2013distracted God stroked his beard<\/p>\n he asked about the first cause<\/p>\n \u2013God looked into infinity<\/p>\n he asked about the final cause<\/p>\n \u2014God cracked his knuckles when Spinoza became silent \u2014you talk nicely Baruch let\u2019s speak however \u2014look at your hands \u2014you destroy your eyes \u2014you are badly nourished buy a new house \u2014forgive flowers in the hair \u2014look after your income \u2014be cunning \u2014dedicate a treatise \u2014temper\u00a0the rational fury<\/a> \u2014think \u2014you see Baruch \u2014I want to be loved now the curtain falls he sees darkness<\/p>\n he hears the creaking of the stairs What follows is a short-short story, a favorite genre of Herbert\u2019s. \u00a0You can find some more of them on the Artful Dodge<\/em> page here<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cSpinoza\u2019s Bed\u201d IT IS AN amazing thing that our memory best retains images of great philosophers when their lives were coming to an end. Socrates raising the chalice with hemlock to his mouth, Seneca whose veins were opened by a slave (there is a painting of this by Rubens), Descartes roaming cold palace rooms with a foreboding that his role of teacher of the Swedish Queen would be his last, old Kant smelling a grated horseradish before his daily walk (the cane preceding him, sinking deeper and deeper into the sand), Spinoza consumed by tuberculosis and patiently polishing lenses, so weak he is unable to finish his Treatise on the Rainbow. . .A gallery of noble moribunds, pale masks, plaster casts.<\/p>\n In the eyes of his biographers Spinoza was unmistakably an ideal wise man: exclusively concentrated on the precise architecture of his works, perfectly indifferent to material affairs, and liberated from all passions. But an episode in his life is passed over in silence by some biographers, while others consider it only an incomprehensible, youthful whim.<\/p>\n Spinoza\u2019s father died in 1656. In his family Baruch had the reputation of an eccentric young man who had no practical sense and wasted precious time studying incomprehensible books. Due to clever intrigues (his stepsister Rebecca and her husband Casseres played the main role in this) he was deprived of his inheritance. She hoped the absentminded young man would not even notice. But it happened otherwise.<\/p>\n Baruch initiated a lawsuit in court with an energy no one suspected him to have. He hired lawyers, called witnesses, was both matter-of-fact and passionate, extremely well-oriented in the most subtle details of procedure and convincing as a son injured and stripped of his rights.<\/p>\n They settled the division of the estate relatively quickly (clear legal rules existed in this matter). But then a second act of the trial unexpectedly followed, causing a general sense of unpleasantness and embarrassment.<\/p>\n As if the devil of possessiveness had entered him, Baruch began to litigate over almost each object from his father\u2019s house. It started with the bed in which his mother, Deborah, had died (he did not forget about its dark green curtains). Then he requested objects without any value, explaining he had an emotional attachment to them. The judges were monumentally bored, and could not understand where this irresistible desire in the ascetic young man came from. Why did he wish to inherit a poker, a pewter pot with a broken handle, an ordinary kitchen stool, a china figure representing a shepherd without a head, a broken clock which stood in the vestibule and was a home for mice, or a painting that hung over the fireplace and was so completely blackened it looked like a self-portrait of tar?<\/p>\n Baruch won the trial. He could now sit with pride on his pyramid of spoils, casting spiteful glances at those who tried to disinherit him. But he did not do this. He only chose his mother\u2019s bed (with the dark green curtain), giving the rest away to his adversaries defeated at the trial.<\/p>\n No one understood why he acted this way. It seemed an obvious extravagance, but in fact had a deeper meaning. It was as if Baruch wanted to say that virtue is not at all an asylum for the weak. The act of renunciation is an act of courage-it requires the sacrifice of things universally desired (not without regret and hesitation) for matters that are great, and incomprehensible.<\/p>\n Finally, you might want to read a great article on the continuing influence of Spinoza upon what\u2019s called the \u201cturn to religion\u201d in French philosophy. \u00a0It\u2019s by my professor Douglas Collins<\/a> and has more citations per hour than anything else on the face of the earth. \u00a0It\u2019s called \u201cL\u2019Amour intellectuel de Dieu: Lacan\u2019s Spinozism and Religious Revival in Recent French Thought\u201d<\/a> and I think it\u2019s invaluable. \u00a0Doug is also famous for getting some eccentric student reviews\u2013see what I mean here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Zbigniew Herbert (1924-1998) is one of the two greatest Polish poets of the 20th century. \u00a0He is part of a poetic duo, or duel, with Czeslaw Milosz. \u00a0Milosz was more of a mystic, Herbert a skeptic. \u00a0Milosz was almost always critical of Poland, whereas Herbert entrenched himself within the Polish tradition. \u00a0I want to avoid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1974,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,33,39],"tags":[118,130,225,1905,689,1920,827,943],"class_list":["post-764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-czeslaw-milosz","category-literature","category-poetry","tag-artful-dodge","tag-baruch-spinoza","tag-cogito","tag-czeslaw-milosz","tag-poetry-2","tag-poland","tag-spinoza","tag-zbigniew-herbert"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a>
\nwas seized by a desire to reach God<\/p>\n
\ncutting lenses
\nhe suddenly pierced a curtain
\nand stood face to face<\/p>\n
\n(and as he so spoke
\nhis mind enlarged
\nand his soul)
\nhe posed questions
\nabout the nature of man<\/p>\n
\ncleared his throat<\/p>\n
\nGod spake<\/p>\n
\nI like your geometric Latin
\nand the clear syntax
\nthe symmetry of your arguments<\/p>\n
\nabout Things Truly
\nGreat<\/p>\n
\ncut and trembling<\/p>\n
\nin the darkness<\/p>\n
\nyou dress shabbily<\/p>\n
\nforgive the Venetian mirrors<\/a>
\nthat they repeat surfaces<\/p>\n
\nthe drunken song<\/p>\n
\nlike your colleague Descartes<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nlike Erasmus<\/p>\n
\nto Louis XIV
\nhe won\u2019t read it anyway<\/p>\n
\nthrones will fall because of it<\/a>
\nand stars turn black<\/a><\/p>\n
\nabout the woman
\nwho will give you a child<\/p>\n
\nwe are speaking about Great Things<\/p>\n
\nby the uneducated and the violent
\nthey are the only ones
\nwho really hunger for me<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nSpinoza remains alone
\nhe does not see the golden cloud
\nthe light on the heights<\/p>\n
\nfootsteps going down<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nby Zbigniew Herbert<\/p>\n<\/a>