After the Second World War, discussions erupted concerning the character and legitimacy of art, including poetry. The famous line by Theodore Adorno, saying that writing poetry after Auschwitz is impossible, was frequently debated. However, should the silence of poetry be the answer to genocide? Polish poets also joined this international discussion. The painful paradox was most prominently displayed by the attitude of Tadeusz Różewicz, who simultaneously wrote and emphasized the moral ambiguity of “writing poems after Oświęcim”. He posited that the cultural inheritance did not prevent the moral and material ruin, and if so, then the death of fundamental values should be accompanied by the complete collapse of the higher human activities that are based on these values. Every poem that emerges after this upheaval of the world thus far participates in the creation of falsehood; it is another element upholding the appearances that everything is the same as it once was. This poet of the second half of the twentieth century stood in a morally ambiguous position, allowing himself a voice when so many people had been deprived of their own voice. Tadeusz Różewicz, noting the “death of poetry”, did not put down his pen. Zbigniew Herbert takes a completely different stance on this issue. The purpose of this study is the analysis of works that provide insight into Zbigniew Herbert’s thoughts on the subject of the role of art. This examination focuses on Herbert’s work from the 1950s (his first two collections: Chord of Light and Hermes, Dog and Star).
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