Zbigniew Herbert papers

The Zbigniew Herbert Papers consist of letters, manuscripts, and personal papers documenting the life and work of Zbigniew Herbert. The collection spans the years 1968-1989, with the bulk of the material dating from 1985-1989.

The collection is housed in 3 boxes and organized into three series: Correspondence, Writings, and Other Papers. Box 3 contains Restricted Fragile Papers.

Series I, Correspondence , consists of incoming letters from over 30 correspondents, as well as a number of outgoing items, including a series of postcards from the poet to his wife. The majority of the correspondence is in Polish, but there is material in German, English, French, and Italian in the collection. All but one of the letters were written between the years 1985 and 1989.

The correspondence allows a glimpse of the poet's private and professional life, as it comprises messages from publishers, translators, fellow writers, and friends. These include the Polish painter and writer Jozef Czapski, as well as the poet's translator into Serbo-Croatian, Petar Vujicic.

The Czapski file includes an outgoing message, several handwritten notes, and seven typed letters in which the 90-year-old painter shares his opinions and feelings on issues of poetry, art, politics, Polish history, and morality.

The Petar Vujicic file contains only two letters, but they appear to provide the context to a poem Herbert dedicated to his Yugoslavian translator. Vujicic writes about the importance of Herbert's poetry in his country, explains his choices for a Herbert anthology, and draws a parallel between the political situations in Poland and Yugoslavia.

Other noteworthy correspondents represented in the collection include Konstanty Jelenski, the literary critic and historian Jacek Trznadel, the poets Adam Zagajewski and Stanislaw Baranczak, and writers at the American Center of P.E.N.

Series II, Writings , includes notes, holograph and typescript drafts, and copies of final versions of four poems from the collection Elegia na Odejscie (1990) and five essays from the collection Martwa Natura z Wedzidlem (1993). The series is subdivided into autobiographical writings, essays, and poems, with individual essays and poems arranged alphabetically by title. The materials illustrate Herbert's writing and editing methods. Manuscripts are often represented by notes and multiple drafts, and manuscript leaves often appear on the versos of correspondence and documentation. Where multiple drafts are present, they are arranged chronologically. Where leaves appear on the versos of correspondence from individuals or institutions with established name headings, cross-references have been added to the finding aid from the correspondence to the writings.

Series III, Other Papers , includes addresses and a list of names.

Restricted Fragile Papers are housed in box 3.