[Reader-list] Images and Weapons: "The Power of Taste" -- Zbigniew Herbert

[Sopan Joshi]

I am forwarding this email, especially in the context of Mr 
Mazzarella's very interesting posting.

Monica
==========================
Dear Monica

Many of the recent postings were quite saddening, and I hope that 
this doesn't continue.

In the context of the discussion on aesthetics, I am sending an 
English translation of a poem entitled "The Power of Taste" by the 
Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert, an exile who resisted the Polish 
communist regime through his poetry and aesthetics.

It is followed by a write-up on Herbert from the Internet that might 
be contextual to some of the discussions on the list.

Best

Sopan
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THE POWER OF TASTE
-- by Zbigniew HERBERT

It didn't require great character at all
our refusal disagreement and resistance
we had a shred of necessary courage
but fundamentally it was a matter of taste

Yes taste
in which there are fibers of soul
the cartilage of conscience
Who knows if we had been better and more
attractively tempted
sent rose-skinned women thin as a wafer
or fantastic creatures from the paintings of
Hieronymus Bosch

but what kind of hell was there at this time
a wet pit the murderers' alley the barrack
called a palace of justice
a home-brewed Mephisto in a Lenin jacket
sent Aurora's grandchildren on into the field
boys with potato faces
very ugly girls with red hands
..............
So æsthetics can be helpful in life
one should not neglect the study of beauty

Before we declare our consent
we must carefully examine
the shape of the architecture
the rhythm of the drums
official colors
the despicable ritual of funerals
Our eyes refused obedience

the princes of our senses proudly chose exile

(Translated by John Carpenter and Bogdana Carpenter)
_____________________________________________________

Brief write-up on Herbert:

"A major part of contemporary art declares itself on the side of 
chaos, gesticulates in a void, or tells the story of its own barren 
soul"

-- Zbigniew HERBERT (1924-1998) - poet and essayist, author of plays 
and radio dramas. He was a writer of
great accomplishment and an exceptional artistic and moral authority 
whose biography was tragically enmeshed in the history of the 
twentieth century. He is one of the most frequently translated Polish 
writers.

The distinguished work of Zbigniew Herbert has brought world-wide 
recognition to Poland. He has been unanimously and rightfully 
recognized as a great, perhaps the greatest Polish poet of the 
twentieth century; a universal poet who is at the same time very much 
rooted in the realities of his own country. It would be impossible to 
get to know and completely understand Poland's fortunes and its soul 
over the course of the twentieth century without Herbert's subtle and 
classically lucid work. Thanks to it, many people (not just in 
Poland) have been made aware of a choice that is theirs to make - 
between conformism and the responsibility to higher values and human 
dignity, wherever it is threatened. In our countries there is and has 
been a great number of talented artists, but
not many of them are deep thinkers. Herbert not only wrote exquisite 
poems, but developed his own system of
thought, too, which treats of the individual and of the collectivity 
known as the Nation. As an imperative of everyday life and immediate 
experience, he invoked the foundational values of European culture; 
revived the ancient kalokagatia - the unity of beauty, truth, and 
goodness; kindled chivalry; and, with his stoic attitude, perceived 
values that could save humans in the throes of chaos. In his struggle 
with utilitarianism and pragmatism, he showed that "the knight's 
reward is his virtue; the sage's reward is his wisdom; and the reward 
of the artist is the beauty of his creations and the inner beauty 
that comes as their result." It is to these profoundly considered
values that Herbert's poetry owes its international popularity.

Nowadays, anyone who feels responsible for anything beyond his own 
well-being runs the risk of  being ridiculed. Herbert's well-known 
invention, the simultaneously heroic and ironic character Mr. Cogito, 
teaches us, in our standstill at the precipice, how to fight the 
monster. But what sort of monster? The monster of the generation of 
this century's latter half has had one kind of countenance. For the 
generations to come in ten, twenty years, it will have another. But 
what enslaves mankind will always need to be resisted, and the 
"Herbertian attitude" will never
vanish from the horizon of the world to come.

The verse collection 89 Poems is a remarkable attempt to create "a 
canon of one's own", a distillation of the most significant elements 
of a poet's material. For the translator, it presents a rare occasion 
to examine one's own processes and intuitions in making choices from 
such rich poetic material. Throughout the work's five sections, like 
books of the Bible, Herbert's entire universum shines - from the 
macro-cosmos of social issues to more intimate chords of love and 
sorrow. We can only be grateful for the poet's great effort despite 
his extremely poor health, and for the generosity of another poet, 
Ryszard Krynicki, for presenting us with this uncommon book -
a Herbertian testament.