Pracownia pisarska - o brulionach Zbigniewa Herberta

A writer’s manuscripts reveal the text in statu nascendi. They represent the space in which textual identity is constructed, and reveal specific moments of interaction between the writer’s biography and the text. Herbert’s drafts and notes are a space of dialogue with himself and tradition, they contain notes on his reading and shed light on the palimpsestic dimension of the poet’s work. A key phenomenon in the dynamic of writing are the deletions, which can tell us much about the subject and his aesthetic choices. To study the drafts is to broaden the field of interpretation, to pose new questions, to multiply doubts and to unveil the face of Herbert’s work. Fornari draws on French theories of genetic criticism to present these problems with reference to specific examples from the materials in the Zbigniew Herbert archive at the National Library of Poland.