THE POETRY OF ZBIGNIEW HERBERT ● Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney reads from the poetry of Zbigniew Herbert. This event was organized by the Irish Polish Society Dublin, Ireland-Poland Cultural Foundation and the Polish Embassy in Ireland.

Date: 16th October 2008
Venue: Irish Writers' Centre, Dublin.
Camera: Marek Bogacki
Produced by DOCUMENTAVI 2008

• Category

  Education

[Jan96106]

I think Herbert also saw himself as a kind of biblical prophet, of being in the same position as a biblical prophet. In one Mr. Cogito poem he mentions "the suffering of the prophets," and in "The Envoy of Mr. Cogito," the speaker warns himself to beware of pride, to "repeat: I was called - weren't there better ones than I," reminiscent of the call of the biblical prophets and their answer: Here am I! Send me." The prophets were aware of their inferior status and duty to respond nevertheless.

[Jan96106]

I also need to add that the graceful lines of the kind of architecture he was viewing also qualifies it as "motionless dance."

[Jan96106]

As a quick guess, the poem seems to be celebrating the beauty of architecture as art, as a fluid painting or sculpture; he calls it "art of fantasy and stone." He personifies it: an arch is "an eyebrow of stone"; a wall has an "unruffled forehead." He calls it "a fugitive from apparent forms," perhaps because it merges and changes with the light and the environment that surrounds it, thus transcending any form. It is "motionless dance," an oxymoron, something seemingly contradictory but true.

[Jan96106]

Thanks for uploading this and directing me to the whole reading, which I immediately went to and watched. Herbert is a fascinating poet and I thoroughly enjoyed Heaney's lecture about Herbert and his reading of some of Herbert's poems.

[grJudith266]

nice.

[utauraver]

can someone help me out on how to analysis herberts poem: architecture. Thanks for any help!

[kingkongufulgus]

This nearly made me cry