A beautiful selection from one of the major Polish poets of the twentieth century.

Herbert writes as though history, myth and ordinary objects have all been hauled into the same interrogation room. Classical figures recur — Marcus Aurelius, Nike, Apollo — but stripped of monumentality and made vulnerable, absurd, morally compromised or painfully human. Elsewhere, chairs, pebbles, elephants and household objects acquire their own philosophical lives. 

Herbert’s work was shaped by wartime occupation, Stalinism and the moral wreckage of twentieth-century Europe, but he rarely writes straightforward political poetry. Instead he returns obsessively to conscience, complicity, dignity and what remains of ethical judgement when the official language of history has become useless. This selection includes some of his best-known early poems, including “Nike Who Hesitates,” “To Marcus Aurelius,” “Five Men,” “Elephant” and “A Parable of King Midas.” Translated by Czesław Miłosz and Peter Dale Scott, with an introduction by A. Alvarez.

Carcanet Press, Manchester, 1985. First Carcanet edition. Paperback. Translated from the Polish by Czesław Miłosz and Peter Dale Scott. Introduction by A. Alvarez. Light shelf wear and rubbing to covers, with minor edge and corner wear; cover remains bright. Internally clean and unmarked; binding firm. Very good condition.