"TRZEBA DAĆ ŚWIADECTWO", CZYLI JAK ZBIGNIEW HERBERT CZYTAŁ SWOJE WIERSZE
"TRZEBA DAĆ ŚWIADECTWO [THE NEED TO GIVE TESTIMONY]", OR HOW ZBIGNIEW HERBERT RECITED HIS POEMS

Summary/Abstract: Zbigniew Herbert inferred the auctorial style of reading his poems out loud from the philosophical-elegiac tone of his debut volume Struna światła (String of Light), the proofs of which are in the poet's radio recitations from the 1960s and 1970s as well as from public performances during evenings with the author from the 1980s. The recorded pieces sound as a Stoic's substantive lecture about the rule of the world and at the same time a testimony of ethical obligation pronounced over a friend's coffin. In 1998, at the last recording session, Herbert changed the recitation style of his lyrical pieces into a more personal, strengthening their catastrophic dimension on the one hand, and psychological-lyrical on the other hand. Scriptoral reading of the recorded poems allows to discern the difference in style and to interpret it within the affective mode--an unusual encounter with a transformed poet.

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